We warned, but our warnings were disregarded
Our country has fallen victim to what has become a usual EU frenzy on the eve of European Parliament elections: a full-blast anti-corruption drive.
This does not regard our country alone: after tackling Poland and Hungary, the European Parliament yesterday tackled Romania with a full debate. Malta comes later in the scheme of things but this detail is rather immaterial. On the contrary, as we highlight in today’s issue, the European Commission will for the first time order a member state – Malta – to strengthen enforcement of its anti-money laundering rules after the Pilatus Bank scandal prompted its being taken under control of the financial regulator.
We warned many times this is what was going to happen but we were ridiculed, called traitors, alleged that we were inciting the EP and turning it against Malta when in actual fact it was the lack of proper regulation and enforcement that was to blame.
In other words, the Commission and its various bodies will now do what the Maltese authorities, especially the FIAU, have signally failed to do in general and in particular in the Pilatus Bank debacle.
One could call this the humiliation of seeing Malta’s sovereign status being rolled back by the EU seeing we were unable to do what we committed ourselves to do as a result of EU accession.
We warned many times this is what was going to happen but we were ridiculed, called traitors, alleged that we were inciting the EP and turning it against Malta when in actual fact it was the lack of proper regulation and enforcement that was to blame.
The government spin machine went full blast against anyone who dared raise this issue and the Maltese electorate showed its opinion by giving the present administration a full certificate of innocence in last year’s hurried election.
Not one person, not even one, was kicked out as a result of investigations into so many cases of alleged corruption. People in the crucial institutions that were meant to supervise the crucial financial services sector who tried to do their job were hounded out of office while the others, understanding the message, ducked and kept their heads low.
The government turned the whole exercise of people exercising their right to question and criticise into an exercise of partisanship and tagged all critical comment as partisan-inspired.
MEPs who exercised their rights to express in the European Parliament what is after all their duty to express in the EP, our suprana- tional parliament, their concerns about what is happening in Malta were threatened even with bodily violence and the old chestnut of foreign interference was resurrected from Mintoff’s time by people who have still not understood that the EP is now our legislative body.
People now ask if the coming action by the European Commission will have any practical impact on Malta as if this relates to the price of bread. Others will undoubtedly point at the growing national economy as if that removes any questions regarding the real state of the Maltese nation.
Maybe, true, there will not be any practical consequence of the Commission’s action but the impact, in terms of Malta’s international reputation will be devastating in the longer term. Only the very short sighted or the corrupt themselves would think otherwise.