Murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

9.11.2017

Question for written answer E-006923-17
to the Commission
Rule 130
Dominique Bilde (ENF) , Marie-Christine Boutonnet (ENF)

On 16 October 2017, the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in Malta.

Daphne Caruana Galizia had been publishing on her blog the findings of her ongoing investigations into acts of corruption and money laundering in political circles in Malta.

Her murder highlights once again the shortcomings in the protection of press freedom in Malta which had already been exposed by the Commission’s Media Pluralism Monitoring Tool in 2016.

1. On 2 November 2017, eight heads of international news organisations called on the Commission to launch an inquiry into this murder. Does the Commission have full confidence in the Maltese authorities to carry out a full, objective and impartial inquiry into the murder?

2. This incident comes only shortly after the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which ended on 30 June 2017. Does the Commission plan to satisfy itself that no conflicts of interest or transparency issues arose in connection with the matters dealt with during the Maltese Presidency, one of which was money laundering?