Updated 4pm with details on questions put to George Hyzler.

The European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control on Thursday overwhelmingly endorsed Malta's nomination of George Hyzler to serve as a member of the court.

The committee voted 25 in favour, two against and with one abstention after a hearing in which Hyzler, the outgoing Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, gave a presentation in which he spoke about his credentials and his wishes for the court.

Hyzler's hearing was held after that of the Cypriot nominee. He replied to various questions, where he said he was in favour of full disclosure of the interests of the members of the court. 

Malta's reputation and personal links to the Paradise Papers

MEP Kuhs Joachim asked Hyzler how he would act when matters involving Malta came up, describing the country as being plagued by scandals and corruption. Malta, he observed, issued most golden passports to Russians and Belorussians, enabling them to circumvent sanctions.  The government was seen as protecting people associated with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

He also pointed out that Hyzler’s name appeared six times in the Paradise Papers as a representative of various firms and a particular American private banker convicted of fraud.

Replying, Hyzler said none of the companies he was involved in had been linked to corruption or wrongdoing in any way directly or indirectly.

As to the individual, whom he had represented as a lawyer, he was not convicted of fraud but the bank that employed him was convicted for the way it set up accounts for Americans to avoid taxes. His client was actually a whistleblower and he was paid €1.4million by the American IRS for disclosing names of people holding accounts in Switzerland.    

“Without whistle-blowers we will never know who is involved in fraud, breaking the law,” Hyzler said.

As for the situation in Malta, Hyzler said he was not there to defend or otherwise the actions of the country and if he was approved to the post he would have absolutely no hesitation to take action against his country and any other country involved in wrongdoing. This was fundamental and it was important to have the same approach for all countries, not just Malta, which happened to be a small country and sometimes numbers looked bigger in a small country.

“At the end of the day, Malta has been labelled because of these incidents and maybe, my nomination is also to address that particular reputational damage it has suffered,” he said.

A final vote on the nomination will be taken by the plenary of the European Parliament early next month.

Earlier in the hearing, Hyzler explained that after serving as a junior minister in a PN administration and in the Public Accounts Committee, he retired from politics 20 years ago and subsequently held various offices including chairman of the board of governors of the Malta Arbitration Centre, president of the Chamber of Advocates, member of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, member of the Judicial Appointments Committee and chairman of the ethics commission for advocates.

More recently he became Malta's first standards commissioner, where, he explained, he had taken bold decisions to expose shortcomings in ethical behaviour and conduct across the political divide, strongly and fairly.

He said that through the European Court of Auditors he wished to play a part in realising the aspiration expressed by EP president Roberta Metsola when she stated “I want people to believe in Europe. To re-capture that sense of hope and enthusiasm in our project. To stand up for those values that unite us as Europeans”.

He explained that the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility, in this post-pandemic period will provide new audit challenges that will require a departure from traditional audit approaches, with even more emphasis on performance auditing.

"If nominated as a member of ECA I shall certainly bring the expertise and experiences of my entire career to my role in enhancing vigilance and – combatting fraud and corruption– especially in those areas where risks are higher." 

Government, opposition congratulate Hyzler

Both the government and the opposition congratulated Hyzler after the hearing.

Opposition leader Bernard Grech said that he hoped that the void Hyzler will leave in Malta (when he steps down as Standards Commissioner) will be filled as soon as possible in consultation with the Opposition.

Hyzler's nomination to the European Court of Auditors was announced by Prime Minister Robert Abela at the end of January. The six-year term of the current Maltese representative to the court, Leo Brincat, expires in September and is not being renewed.

Abela had denied claims that Hyzler was being 'kicked upstairs' in view of his findings as standards Commissioner, saying instead that the nomination was being made with an eye on consensus and because Hyzler had the right qualities for the post.