Approved! Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism is now a reality

MEP David Casa spearheaded the prize within Parliament’s Bureau

Now it’s official: 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 as a result of the hard work done by Maltese Member of the European Parliament David Casa within Parliament’s administration. In fact, David 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.

“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. 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,” David Casa said.

David Casa did not only work hard to ensure that this prize is approved by Parliament’s Plenary in 2017 and 2019, but was also the driving force during negotiations between Parliament’s administration and political groups within the Bureau. He has worked hand-in hand with Parliament’s President David Sassoli as well as the Vice-Presidents to lay out the rules for this prize which ensure transparency and accountability.

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 Carunana 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.