New EU Envoy in Valletta: Meet the Frenchman Who Calls Malta ‘Europe’s Test-Tube’

Valletta’s 16th-century walls have seen many envoys come and go, but few arrivals feel as timely as that of Jean-Marc Pisani, the new Head of the European Commission’s Representation in Malta. The French diplomat touched down in mid-May, just as the islands were shaking off the last Covid restrictions and bracing for a summer that will test everything from airport queues to waste-collection contracts. In the courtyard of the Auberge d’Italie, where EU flags already flutter alongside the Maltese cross, Pisani told Hot Malta why he asked for “the smallest capital with the biggest heart” after postings in Istanbul, Kyiv and Baghdad.

“Malta is a laboratory,” he said, switching effortlessly between English and Maltese picked up during a 2004 stint at the Commission’s translation centre in Luqa. “You have 550,000 people on 316 km² solving problems that bigger states haven’t even diagnosed yet—migration, energy, AI governance. If we can crack it here, Europe can scale it.”

Locals greeted the sound-bite with the sceptical nod reserved for anyone who mentions “scaling” before the second round of Kinnie. Yet Pisani’s first two weeks suggest he has done his homework. He dropped in on fishermen in Marsaxlokk to discuss electric outboard motors financed by the EU Recovery Fund, tasted rabbit at Mgarr’s Festa Frawli and live-tweeted in Maltese about imqaret. The charm offensive is strategic: only 42 % of Maltese voters turned out last European election, the bloc’s lowest rate, and trust figures have slid since the 2017 journalist assassination. “My job is not to sell Brussels,” Pisani insists. “It is to bring Brussels to your doorstep, then take your doorstep back to Brussels.”

That doorstep currently looks like a €55 million overhaul of the Gozo general hospital, co-funded by EU health infrastructure cash, and a planned offshore wind farm whose cables would come ashore near Delimara—projects that can veer from applause to protest faster than you can say “development permit.” Pisani, a trained engineer who helped rebuild Mosul’s bridges after ISIS, says he is ready for the heat. “I have negotiated with warlords; I can handle a village feasts committee.”

Still, the cultural tightrope is real. In Valletta’s coffee shops, pensioners argue that EU membership drove up property prices; teenagers clutching Erasmus backpacks counter that free roaming lets them flirt across three time-zones. Pisani’s answer is to “localise the narrative.” Starting in July, the Representation will fund pop-up “Europe Houses” in each locality—shipping containers painted in pastizzi colours where citizens can swipe through touch-screens to see exactly how much EU money their street has absorbed. The first will park outside the new Marsa flyover, timed to catch commuters sweating over diesel fumes and asking, “Where did our taxes go?”

Beyond spreadsheets, Pisani wants to tap Malta’s creative pulse. He has already met indie game developers in Fgura who receive Horizon Europe grants and nuns in Mdina running a blockchain olive-oil traceability project. A self-confessed opera buff, he slipped into the Manoel Theatre’s dress rehearsal of Aida, joking that “European integration began when Verdi scores crossed the Mediterranean.” The quip made it to TikTok, clocking 30,000 views—proof, perhaps, that soft power still plays in a nation that gave the world Daphne Caruana Galizia and Joseph Calleja in equal measure.

Yet the hardest chapter lies ahead. Rule-of-law talks resume this autumn, and Malta must convince Brussels that judicial reforms are irreversible. Pisani chooses his words carefully: “My role is not to judge; it to accompany. But accompaniment means honest conversation.” Those conversations will unfold in village band clubs, university labs and, yes, on the ferries where Gozitans commute with the same stamina Pisani once needed to cross the Tigris.

As the sun sets over Grand Harbour, the new Head strolls past couples taking selfies where Knights once beheaded pirates. He recalls a line from Maltese poet Dun Karm that his grandmother, a French teacher in Tunis, used to quote: “Min jaf ibaħħar, jaf il-qalb tal-baħar” – he who knows how to sail, knows the heart of the sea. Pisani smiles, adjusting the EU lapel pin he wore through three conflict zones. “I’m here to learn that heart. If I manage, maybe Europe will learn it too.”