Joseph Muscat

Joseph Muscat (born 22 January 1974) is a Maltese politician who served as the 13th prime minister of Malta from 2013 to 2020 and leader of the Labour Party from 2008 to 2020.

Muscat was born on 22 January 1974, in Pietà, Malta, to a Burmarrad family.

He is an only child.

With his father a fireworks importer, Muscat constantly referred to his family roots when describing his aversion to bureaucracy that hinders business.

Muscat is married to Michelle Muscat (née Tanti) and they are the parents of twins, Etoile Ella and Soleil Sophie.

Muscat received his formal education at the Government Primary School in St. Paul's Bay, Stella Maris and St. Aloysius' College.

Educated at St. Aloysius' in the 1980s, Muscat experienced the closure of Church schools by the Labour government of the day.

During his university years, from 1992 till 1997, Muscat worked as a journalist with the Labour Party's media arm, and founded the Party's now defunct news portal maltastar.com. He also worked as a journalist with the party's radio station, Super One Radio.

Muscat was as a member of the youth section of the Labour Party, the Labour Youth Forum (Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti) where he served as financial secretary (1994–97) and acting chairperson (1997).

He graduated Bachelor of Commerce in Management and Public Policy (University of Malta, 1995), Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Public Policy (University of Malta, 1996), and Master of Arts in European Studies (University of Malta, 1997).

During the Labour government of 1996–98 he was a member of the National Commission for Fiscal Morality (1997–98) and was considered a protégé of Mario Vella.

He later took on a similar role at the Labour Party's Super One Television, chaired by Alfred Mifsud, becoming assistant head of news in 1996.

Muscat wrote a regular column in L-Orizzont, a Maltese-language newspaper published by the General Workers' Union, as well as its sister Sunday weekly It-Torċa; he was a regular contributor to the independent newspaper The Times of Malta.

Upon graduation, in 1997 Muscat was employed as investment adviser by the Malta External Trade Corporation (METCO) and soon after joined as market intelligence manager the newly established Institute for the Promotion of Small Enterprise (IPSE) under the Malta Development Corporation (MDC) headed by Mario Vella; as he himself noted in his PhD thesis, in this post Muscat was effectively considered a political appointee and a person of trust of the ruling party.

This situation made it harder for him to retain the confidence of the management after the return in power of the Nationalist Party in 1998 and the departure of Mario Vella from the MDC.

He later served as education secretary in the central administration of the party (2001–2003) and chairman of its annual general conference (November 2003).

He stayed in the position till 2001.

After staunchly campaigning against Malta's membership in the European Union at the 2003 referendum, the Labour Party lost its second general election in a row.

In 2003, Muscat was nominated to a working group led by George Vella and Evarist Bartolo on the Labour Party's policies on the European Union.

This working group produced the document Il-Partit Laburista u l-Unjoni Ewropea: Għall-Ġid tal-Maltin u l-Għawdxin ('Labour Party and the European Union: For the benefit of the Maltese and the Gozitans') which was adopted by the Labour Party Extraordinary General Conference in November of that year.

The working group was instrumental in changing the Labour Party's eurosceptic policies, leading it to embrace a pro-EU stance.

At this General Conference, Muscat was approved as a candidate for member of the European Parliament.

Previously he was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2008.

Despite having previously expressed opposition to Malta's entry into the European Union, Muscat was elected to the European Parliament in the 2004 European Parliament election.

He was the Labour Party (formerly the Malta Labour Party) candidate who received the most first-preference votes.

Sitting as a Member of the European Parliament, with the Party of European Socialists, he held the post of Vice-President of the Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and substitute member of the committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

He was a member of a number of delegations for relations with Belarus and with the countries of south-east Europe.

In 2007, he attained a Doctorate of Philosophy in Management Research from the University of Bristol with a thesis on Fordism, multinationals and SMEs in Malta, written during Muscat's term as MEP.

The works of Mario Vella are quoted in Muscat's thesis and, according to Daphne Caruana Galizia, Vella could have himself authored certain parts of it.

He was the leader of the opposition from October 2008 to March 2013.

Muscat identifies as a progressive and liberal politician, with pro-business leanings, and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.

Muscat succeeded Alfred Sant as party leader in 2008.

He rebranded the Labour Party, which embraced an increasingly socially liberal and centrist position.

The 2013 general election saw Muscat becoming prime minister in March 2013.

His premiership was marked for pulling together a national consensus for economic growth, based on a restructured Maltese economy.

This experience was reflected in the Labour party's 2013 manifesto with a pledge to continue financially supporting Church schools.

Muscat was re-elected as prime minister in the elections of 3 June 2017 (55.04% after 54.83% in 2013).

His administration led to large-scale changes to welfare and civil liberties, including the legalisation of same-sex marriage in July 2017 and Cannabis in 2018.

Muscat presided over the rise of the Labour Party and its dominance in Maltese politics, and the relative decline of the Nationalist Party. He has been criticised by figures on both the left and right, and has been accused of political opportunism, broken promises on meritocracy and the environment, as well as corruption allegations.

On 1 December 2019, under pressure from the 2019 street protests calling for his resignation in relation to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Muscat announced his resignation, and stepped down on 13 January 2020.