The inevitable repercussions

Last week’s debate in the European Parliament and the subsequent approval of a resolution condemning Malta will inevitably lead to repercussions.

Obviously, here in Malta the whole debate and motion have been received very differently from the way they were perceived in Strasbourg.

Here, where we still have on the Statute Book the infamous law about ‘ Foreign Intervention’, it was seen by the government and those who believe its spin as undue foreign interference, forgetting that in the intervening years we have joined the EU and the European Parliament is now our parliament as much as the Parliament in Valletta is our parliament.

Nobody seems to have remarked that while the resolution about Malta was passed by 466 votes in favour, 49 against and 168 abstentions, the subsequent vote condemning Poland was passed by 438 votes in favour, 152 against and 166 abstentions.

Malta has thus joined Poland and also Hungary as the ‘ bad boys’ of the EU and the condemnation of Malta attracted more negative votes than that about Poland.

It was pathetic to listen to seasoned politicians, such as former premier Alfred Sant, ascribe the vote to maneuvering by the PN MEPs and their allies in the EPP when the positive votes also came from part of Sant’s PES.

It was even more pathetic to note the spin against Roberta Metsola which led to calls for her burning.

The MEPs know what is going on in Malta and they read, like everybody else, the press speculation about what might have caused the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. They don’t need the PN MEPs to spell this out for them.

They know that only in Malta people mentioned in the Panama Papers have been kept on, they know that reports by the FIAU have not been followed through by the police, they know that next to no investigation has been carried out by the proper authorities on companies who have aided tax evasion.

From this basis, the MEPs then broadened out to speak about wider issues that blacken Malta’s name in the world. Malta was pictured as a tax haven, its tax laws as aiding and abetting tax evasion, and the legal procedures in Malta as one big Mafia state.

It is true that the local revulsion following the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has led some Maltese, led by the dead blogger, to make more or less the same accusations and charges.

This has led to diverse bodies in Malta to issue statements denying that Malta is a tax haven etc but these statements did not even get traction in the Maltese media, let alone abroad.

All this will inevitably lead to repercussions. Not, we hasten to add, repercussions on the formal level (though the motion about Poland asked for the kick-starting of the Article 7 mechanism), but more, far more, on the reputational level.

It is also true that many countries whose MEPs threw stones at Malta are jurisdictions that have, for instance, ‘sweetheart’ agreements with select multinationals enabling them to save millions in taxes.

It is also true that Malta’s success has attracted envy and jealousy that such a small country could do so much and so well.

Nobody is asking for Malta to eat humble pie and to accept what is thrown at it, but then it is simply unbelievable that so many accusations and charges are made and not a single person gets investigated or, worse, punished.