Mario de Marco

Mario de Marco (born October 18, 1965) is a Maltese politician and academic currently serving as a Member of Parliament. He is the son of former President Guido de Marco and is the current deputy leader for parliamentary affairs of the Nationalist Party.

De Marco studied at St Aloysius' College and at Cambridge University, United Kingdom, where he graduated in International commercial law.

While there he was nominated a Commonwealth Scholar for Academic Achievement. As well as specializing in Commercial Law he also specialized in Fundamental Human Rights. He is Commercial Law lecturer at the University of Malta.

In the 2003-2008 parliamentary term, he was nominated as Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary House Committee in the House of Representatives. He is also a member of the Parliamentary Committee for European and Foreign Affairs.

Following the March 2008 general election, he was appointed as member of the Cabinet, as Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, within Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's office. In January 2012, he was appointed Minister responsible for Environment, Toirism and Culture.

In the March 2013 general election he was re-elected to parliament and was made the Nationalist deputy leader for parliamentary affairs in May that year.

In April 2016, it was alleged that a local company made works worth thousands of Euros at Mario de Marco house in 2011, and that he only paid for the works in March 2016, following similar allegations were revealed on senior officials at Allied Newspapers which is the owner of the Maltese newspaper The Times of Malta and in which De Marco is also a board member. As he was still a Minister, when the works originally took place, he is accused of breaching the Minister's code of ethics. The businessman whose company was commissioned to do these works by de Marco, has been also linked to Panama Papers, by having a secret account at the British Virgin Island and a company registered in Panama. One Nationalist Party political pundit came out publicly against De Marco and asked party leader Simon Busuttil to dismiss him both as a party Deputy Leader and from Parliament.