Familiar names, including some who had involved themselves in the country's European Union debate prior to last year's referendum, have been hired as assistants to Maltese MEPs.
Sharon Ellul Bonici, founder of the anti-European Union movement, NO 2 EU, was the first to join the European Parliament's staff list from Malta. On the day Malta became an EU member, Ms Ellul Bonici, who also contested the general election on the Labour ticket, started her new role as an assistant to Labour MEP John Attard Montalto.
Since Dr Attard Montalto had already been serving as an observer in the European Parliament prior to the June European elections, he had the opportunity to employ his personal staff as from May 1.
Apart from assisting Dr Attard Montalto, Ms Ellul Bonici also serves as his political consultant and researcher.
Following his election last June, the Labour MEP employed Catherine Attard as his assistant in Malta with ex-Labour MP Rita Law looking after his constituency office.
Other Maltese MEPs are also recruiting their staff.
Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil has so far employed staff to serve both at his offices in Brussels and Strasbourg and in his constituency office in Valletta. As his political assistant in Brussels, Dr Busuttil employed Elaine Cordina, who used to share his office as an information officer at the Malta-EU Information centre.
Running his Malta office, Dr Busuttil chose Stefano Mallia, a member of the European Movement. Nadine Naudi, Dr Busuttil's former personal assistant at MIC, now joins him in his private political office.
Labour's youngest MEP, Joseph Muscat, is still looking for staff. The only member of his "cabinet" is David Borg who until a few weeks ago used to work with him at Labour's e-newspaper, Maltastar. com. Mr Borg is holding interviews and recruiting other members of staff, who will be based in Malta, Gozo and Brussels.
Labour MEP and former Air Malta chairman Louis Grech has so far recruited lawyer and Labour candidate Owen Bonnici as his principal assistant. Mr Grech said he would be employing more staff members in the future.
David Casa, the other Nationalist MEP, has already recruited two members of staff and will be recruiting more in the coming weeks. André Carbonaro, a former functionary at the Ministry for IT and Investment is working with Mr Casa in Brussels. Matthew Saliba was also recently recruited to Mr Casa's staff. Mr Saliba used to work at MIC.
According to EP rules, every MEP is given a financial allocation each year to recruit staff in Brussels, Strasburg and in his or her constituency. MEPs can recruit as many people as they want so long as they stay within their staff financial allocation.
The financial contribution to every MEP amounts to €12,500 a month or more than Lm65,000 annually.