Alex Agius Saliba

Alex Agius Saliba (born 31 January 1988) is a Maltese politician who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019[1] on behalf of the Labour Party.

MEP Alex Agius Saliba
Member of the European Parliament for Malta
Dr
Incumbent
Assumed office July 2019
President	Iratxe García
Personal details
Born	31 January 1988 Pietà, Malta
Political party	Labour Party (national) Socialists & Democrats (European)
Spouse(s)	Sarah Agius Saliba
Alma mater	University of Malta
Profession	Lawyer
Website	facebook.com/alexagiussaliba

Early life and education

Agius Saliba studied at the Tarxien Primary School and subsequently at St. Augustine's College. He is currently furthering his studies and is reading for a master's degree and specialising in European Union Law.

Professional career

Agius Saliba was a journalist for 5 years before he graduated as a lawyer. Since then, he worked as a legal advisor to a number of Ministers, including Ministers Helena Dalli (Malta's European Commissioner) and Ian Borg, and Parliamentary Secretary Stefan Buontempo. He was appointed as Head of the European Union Secretariat in 2017 but stepped down to contest elections in 2018.

Political career

Agius Saliba's political career started when he was still relatively young. At 17 years of age, he became involved in students politics and occupied the Secretary General post of Pulse – a social democratic student organisation. He then moved to the Labour Party youth branch, Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti, where he occupied the role of Secretary General and later on became President.

For 10 years, Agius Saliba was also a member of the Party's National Executive – a post to which he was elected with the largest number of votes from delegates in 2018. During 2018, he was approached by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to contest the European members of parliament Election in Malta.

Member of the European Parliament

He successfully got elected with 35,823 votes. He has since been serving on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Petitions and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, he is part of the Parliament's delegations to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean. Agius Saliba was also appointed as co-chair of the MEP Alliance for Mental Health and is a member of the MEPs Against Cancer group.[2] He was also elected as Vice-President of the Biodiversity, Hunting, Countryside Intergroup.

Dr Agius Saliba is also leading the negotiations on behalf of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament on the Common Charger Resolution. The European Parliament approved the resolution by an overwhelming majority a proposal.

Agius Saliba was also appointed as rapporteur of the Digital Services Act by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee within the European Parliament.

Achievements

In January 2020, Alex Agius Saliba was listed by Politico Europe as one of the 20 MEPs to watch during 2020. Mr Agius Saliba was selected because he will be in charge of his committee's report on the Digital Services Act. This is expected to set rules on how platforms such as Google and Facebook police illegal content online.

A few weeks later he was also shortlisted for The Parliament Magazine MEP Awards 2020 in the category of Internal Market and Consumer Protection, just 8 months after being elected for the first time as a Member of the European Parliament.

Personal life

Agius Saliba is married to Sarah Agius Saliba, the former mayor of Ħaż-Żebbuġ. They currently reside in Siġġiewi.

References

1. "Electoral Commission of Malta". electoral.gov.mt. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
2. MAC MEPs in the 2019-24 legislature MEPs Against Cancer.