Updated 3pm with PM reaction
Labour MEP Josianne Cutajar will not contest the upcoming European Parliament elections, she has confirmed.
The 34-year-old lawyer, who first contested and was elected in 2019, said she had made a "difficult and necessary decision at this stage in my life" but did not elaborate further.
"After 12 years of service in public life, I decided not to contest the European Parliament election," she wrote on Facebook on Monday. "I am proud to have had the privilege to represent you."
She is the second of Labour's four MEPs to announce they will not recontest after Alfred Sant confirmed he would not stand in June's elections.
She said she was grateful to all those who supported her, her family, her canvassers and political team and the Labour Party.
She also thanked the people of Nadur who voted her to the locality's local council two times in a row before her run for the EU Parliament.
It remains unclear why she decided to leave the EU political scene.
Moments after Cutajar announced she will not seek re-election, Prime Minister Robert Abela described her as "a worthy representative" at European parliament.
The country and the PL, he said will continue benefitting from her work, which, he said, always favoured the country.
"I have no doubt she will remain at the disposal of the PL and I look forward to continue working together."
Cutajar was the first Gozitan and the youngest Maltese to have ever been elected as MEP.
She was first elected to the Nadur local council in 2012 when she was still a University law student, and was elected to the EU Parliament on her first run.
"I returned your trust in work for our country. I maintained continuous pressure for EU policies that recognise the realities and challenges of islands like ours and worked for a more inclusive digital sector and the principles of equality and social justice," she wrote.
She had warm wishes for the prime minister and the PL candidates and vowed to remain available to help the party.
Cutajar is vice-chair of the SEArica Intergroup at the European Parliament, focusing on islands, seas, rivers and coastal areas.
Her work was focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and digitalisation.
Before she took her political career to Brussels, she served as Chairperson of Gozo’s PL Regional Committee and worked as a lawyer within the Office of the Prime Minister.
Out with the old
The news comes days after Steve Ellul resigned as Project Green CEO to run for the MEP election, after being urged by the PL "to fill the void" left by Miriam Dalli and Alfred Sant.
Dalli left Brussels in 2020 to take up a seat in the Maltese parliament and later became minister, while Sant confirmed last April that he would not seek re-election "to make room" for others.
The two candidates jointly won the party a record number of votes in the past two MEP elections.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether MEP Cyrus Engerer will contest the election, which leaves only one incumbent Labour MEP - Alex Agius Saliba - to confirm his candidature so far.
In July, the PL approved three new candidates for the MEP election – young lawyers Marie Elise Agius (36), former Mtarfa mayor Daniel Attard (31) and Gudja mayor Marija Sara Vella Gafà (27).
It then approved former union man Jesmond Bonello as a candidate in October and economist Clint Azzopardi Flores as a candidate in December.