Joe Debono Grech is a Maltese

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 politician. He is currently a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives of Malta

House of Representatives of Malta

The House of Representatives is the unicameral legislature of Malta and a component of the Parliament of Malta.The House is composed of an odd number of members elected for a five year term...

.

Political life

Joseph Debono Grech started off in the Labour Party in 1959 both as a Secretary and also as a President of several branches of the party. In 1959 he was one of the founders of the ‘Brigata Laburista’. In 1967 he was appointed Secretary of the Labour Youths and the representative in the bureau of I.U.S.Y. for the same committee. In 1969 he was elected Deputy Leader for party affairs. He contested the general elections for the first time in 1966 on the 13th and 8th district. He was elected in the Maltese Parliament in 1971 and was elected thereafter for thirty years.

In 1983 he was appointed minister

Minister (government)

A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the cabinet....

 of Parastatal and Investments and later held the Agriculture and Fisheries portfolio for four years until 1987. When Labour was reelected in 1996 he served as minister of Transport and Ports. From 2003 till 2008 he was the shadow minister for the Malta International Airport

Malta International Airport

Malta International Airport is the only airport in Malta and it serves the whole Maltese Archipelago. It is located between Luqa and Gudja. It occupies the location of the former RAF Luqa and was completely re-furbished, becoming fully operational on 25 March 1992...

 and the country’s security. He also worked in the General Workers Union

General Workers' Union (Malta)

The General Workers' Union is a national trade union center in Malta.The GWU was founded in 1943 and has been politically identified with the Labour Party as the trade union is the major left-wing trade union in Malta...

 as a Secretary for the Petrol, Chemical and General workers. Today he is the shadow minister for the Defence and harbours.

For many years he represented the Union in Gozo

Gozo

Gozo is a small island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of the Southern European country of Malta; after the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago...

. Presently he is the representative of the Labour Party in the Council of Europe and also a member of the Socialist Bureau in the Council of Europe

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...

, since 1998. He has been a member of the National Executive committee of the party since 1960.