Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism approved by European Parliament

As of October 2021, the European Parliament will start awarding The Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism on a yearly basis. 

This new Prize has been approved by the European Parliament’s Bureau. 

“This is a special day for the European Parliament, for all journalists, and for all the Maltese and Gozitan people. Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s legacy will remain alive, as she will now be remembered every year during the ceremony of the Prize for Journalism,” Nationalist MEP David CAsa (EPP), said. 

“This month, it will be 36 months since Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered. However, her presence, her stories and her legacy lives on, in Malta, in Gozo, and even in the European Parliament,” Casa said. 

Casa spearheaded this award both during the meetings of Parliament’s Bureau, as well as during Parliament’s Working Party for Information and Communication Policy meetings. 

The Prize will distinguish outstanding journalism work based on the principles and values of the European Union. It will be awarded for pieces on topics of interest linked to European values resulting from in-depth journalism undertaken by professional journalists or teams of journalists. The date of the award ceremony will be around the 16th of October, as a symbolic reminder of the date when Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated. 

The European Parliament is the only political institution to honour Daphne Caruana Galizia for her investigative work. Further to The Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism, a few days after her assassination in 2017, the European Parliament named the media room in Strasbourg ‘The Daphne Caruana Galizia Hall’, in which daily press conferences are held during the Strasbourg Plenary Session. 

PN candidate Peter Agius said te proposed modalities of the prize say a lot about European attachment to media freedom – the prize will not involve the MEPs – to ensure its political impartiality, but will be handled entirely by an independent private organisation tasked with selecting a highly competent and independent jury to select the winning piece from works of in-depth investigative journalism dealing with topics touching upon the EU values and rights enshrined in the EU charter of Human Rights. 

“Such emphasis on avoidance of political interference together with the European Parliament’s attachment to honouring Daphne Caruana Galizia for the fourth time stands in contrast with a series of Government decisions in Malta such as the political interference with the term of the public enquiry, the gross meddling with the police investigation by ex-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his chief of staff, the decision of the Honourable Speaker Anglu Farrugia to refuse naming a hall at the House of representatives for Caruana Galizia and the shameful clear-ups of the Daphne Memorial by government authorities,” PN candidate Peter Agius said.