Cyrus Engerer

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Cyrus Engerer is a Maltese politician and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who represented the Labour Party. He served as an MEP from November 2020 to July 2024 and was Malta’s special envoy to the European Union from 2014 to 2019 under Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

Engerer was born on September 28, 1981, in Tas-Sliema, Malta. He grew up in a politically mixed family, with his father supporting the Nationalist Party and his mother supporting the Labour Party. He studied European Studies and Communications at the University of Malta, graduating in 2007, and earned a Master’s in European Politics from the College of Europe in Bruges.

Early in his career, Engerer worked on EU-funded projects and advised on EU funds for various Ministries, local councils, and NGOs. He began his political life with the Nationalist Party (PN). He was elected to the Sliema Local Council in 2009 and became deputy mayor in 2010. He often criticized his party on civil rights and environmental issues.

During the 2011 Maltese divorce referendum, Engerer supported divorce and civil liberties and helped lead the Yes campaign. After the PN leader Lawrence Gonzi voted against divorce in parliament, Engerer resigned from PN and joined the Labour Party.

In Labour, he helped form LGBT Labour and served as Chairperson of the Consultative Council for LGBT rights. He worked on civil unions and gender identity laws and joined the cabinet of the Minister for EU presidency and EU funding, Ian Borg.

In 2013, Engerer announced his candidacy for the 2014 European Parliament elections. He faced legal charges related to circulating pornographic images but was acquitted in 2013; in 2014 he received a two-year suspended jail term. He later withdrew from the 2014 European Parliament elections to avoid negative publicity for the Labour Party.

From 2014 to 2019, Engerer served as the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the EU. He was elected as an MEP in November 2020 after Miriam Dalli left her seat.

Engerer has published a biography of Joseph Muscat titled Joseph, Malta li Rrid Ngħix Fiha, released in January 2013 and well received. He is the partner of Randolph De Battista, Malta’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.