Malta PM: Brexit disastrous
MALTA’S prime minister has branded Brexit a “disastrous creature” that the European Union should have seen coming but did nothing to stop.
Joseph Muscat appeared to rebuke other EU leaders over their handling of British demands for reform in Brussels before the referendum.
Those reforms in areas such as immigration were watered down by the EU, damaging David Cameron’s campaign to keep Britain in the bloc.
Mr Muscat was speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Malta has just finished its six-month term as holders of the rotating presidency of the EU, which coincided with the triggering of Article 50 and the first round of Brexit negotiations. “Our presidency had also to deal with Brexit. This disastrous creature which all of us should have seen coming but none of us acted to stop,” he told an audience including Jean-claude Juncker, European Commission President.
Mr Muscat praised the “excellent collaboration” between the Maltese presidency and the EU institutions dealing with Brexit. “But then again what are we praising here? The terms of a painful divorce which millions of citizens will have to go through?” He previously warned Britain it could expect no special favours from Malta. Just 30 MEPS attended the debate, drawing strong criticism from Mr Juncker.
It is not often that we agree with Jean-claude Juncker. But the European Commission president was surely correct to call the EU Parliament a “ridiculous” body when he addressed its depleted ranks in Strasbourg yesterday. In the vast plenary chamber, which can seat 750 MEPS, just a handful bothered to show up, the lure of Europe’s beaches apparently too great to resist on the eve of the parliament’s long summer break.
The agenda for the session was, perhaps, not especially riveting: a review of Malta’s six-month presidency of the EU, which has just ended. However, Mr Juncker was surely right when he said the parliament members would have shown greater respect had Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron been addressing them.
However, while Mr Juncker’s observations were justified, it is not his place as an unelected official to admonish the elected MEPS. It is emblematic of much that is wrong with the EU that he should even think it proper to do so. Indeed, the parliament’s president, Antonio Tajani, took great umbrage at the criticism. “The commission does not control the parliament,” he said. “It is parliament who should control the commission.”
But that is precisely the point. The commission thinks it is the government of Europe rather than its administrative arm. It is now in charge of the Brexit negotiations which if mishandled could cause great harm to both Britain and the EU.
As the Maltese premier Joseph Muscat pointed out, the EU failed to give David Cameron anything to campaign with in the referendum. While the political leaders were partly responsible, resistance was strongest in Brussels, with the consequences that we see now. Ridiculous indeed.