Well, she wanted to do it, and she did it. Like the wily snooker player who  flaunts calm all the time, she knew potting the last red ball before her final coup would have put her into a velvety corner. Postpone next pot shot to after the European Parliament elections.

On returning to her Brussels royal galore, she was determined to get back at the metaphorical snooker table to finally pot that long overdue red ball and then turn to the other colours. Not political genius, more hypocrisy. The President of the European Parliament, put there as a Manfred Weber and EPP puppet (how could they not re-elect her after the June elections?), realised that going on with her plan to appoint her brother-in-law to the post of Cabinet chief would not go down well at a time when people were being asked to go out and vote.

The karambola worked fine. Happy with her electoral result, given PN voters had no other relatively decent choice, and reblessed with an ideological majority inside the European Parliament, it was time for that red ball to finally find its proper place – inside the pocket. Inside her pockets, however, there seem to be many in Brussels who are just not bothered with such things as nepotism and shameless political intrigue, as long as they’re coming from one side, the current centre-right EU leaderships neatly pushing a war-and-weapons agenda while the people of Europe struggle with high prices, new taxes, and side-lined issues such as immigration and employment.

It didn’t take much time, less than three months, in fact, for the red ball to drop sweetly into the intended pocket, and now the President of the European Parliament’s brother-in-law is Chief of his sister-in-law’s Cabinet with a salary of  €20,000 a month from European taxpayer money. Karambola achieved.

But the watching fans are not amused. They know they have been duped. Postponing red balls makes the game seem drab and cantankerous, which it certainly isn’t when less devious and conniving players are around the green-topped table. The less-prejudiced news outlets in Europe have noted Metsola’s coup, insisting European regulations forbid MEPs from employing next-of-kin, in this case not entirely that, but certainly a close, close relative. The outlets wrote about other outrageous Metsola appointments since her first tenure two years ago.

Fait accompli? With all European institutions ignoring the issue completely, it looks like it is. These are the same institutions which send delegations led by pot-bellied politicians to less influential member states not only to pontificate and let the local media giddily devour the accusations, innuendos and suppositions, but also to dictate at the threat of law suits (at other European institutions, of course) and funding suspensions (by other European institutions, of course).

Malta has not been spared the misery. Issues and procedures that went back decades suddenly became important and urgent. What previous governments, even since the 2004 EU accession, did not address, just 11 years from the 2013 change of government became enormously critical and imperative. We had incessant flows of delegations coming over, abetted by Opposition MEPs with their own political agenda, preaching to us in neo-colonial terms and expecting us to humiliatingly kow tow to their every wish at an instant.

Happily, Labour governments are always open to serious and expert advice, wherever it comes from. Both the Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela administrations showed the necessary respect by gradually addressing many of the issues raised, among them the judicial system, media freedom, and the rule of law, but it is still a work in progress.

Does anyone envisage such European Parliament circuses occurring in member states like Germany and France? Add Italy to that exclusive list now, as the ferocious Giorgia Meloni has started giving Brussels nightmares with her insistence “to treat Italy, a founding member of the EU, as equally and, of course, as distinctly”, going as far as demanding which institutional high posts need to be given to Italy… or else.

That is why snooker games are easy to overlook. Metsola and her karambola are weapons factories, producing tanks, missiles and warplanes for the sad war in Ukraine, when the ideal mission would be a search for peace, a possible deal that could end the suffering that the civil populations of Ukraine and Russia are going through. Convenient time for brothers-in-law and brothers-in-arms, I guess.

Tickle me

So, Judge Edwina Grima has demanded in court that a Lovin Malta interview with Jason Azzopardi be re-edited to eliminate comments that could prejudice the Yorgen Fenech proceedings as well as the administration of justice.

One of the comments was as serious as insisting publicly Fenech only was responsible for commissioning the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The notorious lawyer was also ordered to remove the interview from his Facebook account.

Is that all? A lawyer who has made a habit out of illicitly revealing text messages and making unsubstantiated accusations against persons still facing charges and who could eventually be proven innocent, seems to have again been treated somewhat lightly. Literally a tickle. Not for the first time. What makes judges, magistrates, and high court officials so fearful of his wrath, often treating him with velvet gloves lest they upset the political apple cart?

Quick, Metsola, send a delegation to delve into this marshmallow situation in our law courts.