Air Malta: ‘Brussels does not believe PM’
Air Malta’s future hangs in the balance because the EU Commission does not believe Robert Abela’s government like it did a Nationalist one back in 2012, PN leader Bernard Grech said yesterday.
Speaking on party-owned NET FM, Grech argued that the national airline would have been safe had the PN been the party calling the shots.
“We had a plan, agreed upon with the EU Commission,” Grech said of Air Malta’s 2012 restructuring and state aid plan. “Because at the time we had a government that was respected and believed by the Commission.”
Times of Malta reported last week that the European Commission is likely to refuse a government request to pump up to €300 million into the struggling Air Malta, effectively forcing the airline to shut down.
Grech expressed concern about the company’s future and said it was unacceptable that people – including Air Malta workers – were being left in the dark.
The only information being divulged was coming from newspapers, he said.
If Air Malta were to shut down, then the country would be forced to rely on foreign-owned airlines to connect it to the rest of the world, he warned.
The airline’s chairperson David Curmi has told Times of Malta that a new national airline would be opened to replace Air Malta in a mainly seamless transition for passengers.
The PN leader also spoke about ongoing negotiations between the government and the MUMN to secure a new sectoral deal for nurses and midwives.
MUMN members voted overwhelmingly to reject a government offer earlier this week.
Grech said the government was treating nurses and midwives as secondclass workers, having first procrastinated for months to now offer them salary increases only if they work longer hours.
“Workers are united in their discontent at what the government is saying,” Grech said. “And the government responds by trying to ridicule them.”