The wider picture

It always serves to look at the wider picture. Last week, Latvia found itself at the centre of two, not one, national crises. The two are unrelated.

It always helps to look at the wider picture. Last week, Latvia found itself at the centre of two, not one, national crises. The two are unrelated. The governor of the Central Bank was accused of corruption. He denied it but was forced to resign.

Then the United States services discovered that the third bank in Latvia had broken the embargo against North Korea.

The European Union, with a currency born just a few years ago, does not have the legislative tools to tackle allegations of corruption, let alone investigate claims about banks in member states, except in a very restrictive way. The reason? Elementary: the nation member states have always resisted losing their sovereign rights, not even to the European Central Bank, so the ECB and all its ramifications do not have the investigative powers that its US counterparts have. And even if some form of central control is coming in especially after the big crisis –the Greek bailout and the institutions that have been created – it is still a long way from what the US institutions have.

I am writing this because we may sometimes think that Malta’s problems are the only problems in the EU whereas the truth is the EU has multiple problems and they are many structural ones.

Apart from Latvia, there is at least another member state which has the same money laundering problems with Russian citizens – Cyprus.

Some time ago, someone floated the idea that the Commission might link EU funds with rule of law observance. This idea had some traction in Malta, for obvious reasons. But the latest information from Europe is that this will not fly, because there are an increasing number of member states at odds with Brussels for various reasons – such as Hungary and Poland, which will surely block any proposed linkage between rule of law and EU funds.

At a wider level, the EU is still an unfinished symphony and all the current reliance on help and support from for example the European Parliament is still on a wish list. So those who continually strive for EP support through its various committees are barking up the wrong tree. At this point, here in Malta and also elsewhere in the EU, any solution to any problem can only be a national one.

And this is precisely where we have a problem because, on the one hand, we have a government compromised by innumerable scandals, but on the other hand, we have an Opposition that is becoming a collection of Oppositions.

Our sister paper pointed out this past week that while the Civil Society Network focuses almost exclusively on what we can call the Simon Busuttil – Daphne Caruana Galizia template, the Leader of the Opposition never, or rarely, takes up this issue and instead has been focusing on the VGH deal to manage three hospitals.

Speaking about Simon Busuttil reminds us that ever since he was appointed Opposition spokesman on Governance he has not made, to my knowledge, one statement, one speech regarding his remit. Is he happy with his new designation or was he simply appointed without being consulted?

And maybe, although they have not declared themselves, there is a third grouping in the Opposition, not the Delia group, or the CSN group –