Glenn Micallef, who was Prime Minister’s Robert Abela chief of staff, has been approved by the European Parliament as European Commissioner for for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport portfolio. His hearing took place with minimum opposition from MEPs and was also supported by Malta’s Opposition MEPS at the EPP, Peter Agius and David Casa.
I listened to the entire hearing, and as expected Glenn Micallef is stepping into his role without understanding the fundamentals on the related subjects he will supposedly administer.
On culture, Glenn Micallef spoke about improving the working conditions of artists, but he gave the impression that he doesn’t know that actual artists who work on their own art, are self-employed people. He said that funding needed to increase with European cultural subsidies and applauded the Creative Europe Fund for enabling the funding of literary translations. As someone who have been dealing and trading in literary translations across Europe for more than ten years, I can safely and surely say that I never touched with Creative Europe funds given their byzantine and ridiculous bureaucratic way they are structured.
I could even go further and say that as an actual professional in the culture industries, EU funds for culture are mostly exclusive for those who can risk playing a lottery by filing voluminous paperwork which takes months to compile. Small enterprises like my own don’t afford to play lotteries with bureaucrats for ridiculously structured funds.
On a more general level, the EU is basically absent from the culture industries and is yet to leave a historic mark on them. A perfect example of this is the film industry, where Europe still lags behind the United States in market capitalisation, despite having a rich history of producing some of the greatest films and being a pioneer in cinema. Europe’s film industry is estimated to be around $15 billion in market cap while the film industry in the United States tops $35 billion.
Like most EU Commissioners for Culture, Glenn Micallef is completely oblivious to the realities of the European cultural industries, and my expectations for his tenure are abysmally low in the sense that if things are bad, they can definitely get much worse.
Glenn Micallef also spoke the EU’s book as he harped about engaging the European youth and giving them a seat at the table. This is the usual EU talk and virtue-signaling about trying to make its institutions relevant when it should be focusing on policy matters. However, Glenn Micallef may throw a subtle attack on free speech via this convoluted discourse especially with his proposal for an-anti-bullying directive.
The biggest story in all of this is that Glenn Micallef has started his publicly political career which he will surely continue and extend following his tenure as Commissioner in Malta as a Labour Party candidate. He may very well try to serve as Supreme Leader’s successor.
Note: No single European artist was mentioned during the hearing.
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