The ferocious resistance orchestrated by the Nationalist Party and their European conservative allies to the Individual Investor Programme (IIP) has confirmed at least one thing: the Nationalists never change. They may change their leaders. They may embark on clever public relations exercises. However there is one aspect of this party that never changes: they believe that they have a God given right to govern this island and when not doing so, they stop at nothing to return to power.

Whenever Labour is in power, they do not accept it. They scheme, wheel and deal to undermine Malta provided it is in their Party’s interest. What has been happening over the IIP is yet another example that the Nationalists never change. The damage the Nationalist Party did to Malta during the past days and weeks is enormous.

The budget panicked them. It was a budget that surprised even those who do not traditionally support Labour. So when the IIP was announced, the Nationalists acted like a drowning man clutching at a straw. First they were contemplating the scheme. Then they were in favour of the scheme in principle but against the details. Then they were against it outright.

There is another reason why the PN acted this way. They know that the success of the Budget partly relies on the success of the IIP. The Labour Government knows that the 30 million Euros it plans to make out of this scheme will help it to achieve the aims of the budget.

So they tried to thwart the nation’s attention from the good feeling which followed the budget and replaced it by fear, fear of the nonsense they were blabbing about that Malta was going to be sold to the Russian Mafia, the Chinese who want to escape their government and to terrorists who want to escape the law.

The arguments being made by the Nationalists against the IIP are baseless and futile. They claim that in principle they are against the “sale”, as they are cunningly calling it, of citizenship to foreigners. They say that we should be proud of our citizenship, as indeed, we should. They say that it is citizenship that makes us Maltese, as indeed, it does. But using these same arguments, they should also be against any foreigner becoming a citizen of Malta, whether that foreigner is to become Maltese through the IIP, through marriage to a Maltese national or through having resided in Malta for a number of years, because the end result is exactly the same: a foreigner becoming a Maltese citizen.

The argument that a criminal might become a Maltese citizen does not hold water either. The law provides for a due diligence to be made on each applicant, and gives the right to the Minister to refuse any application. Whether an individual has a criminal record can today be easily established through Europol and Interpol.

The secrecy clause has also been removed and this shows that the Labour Government listens. It took heed of the concerns of the Maltese people.

But these are not the real issues for the Nationalists, so it looks like the many shenanigans which happened during the seventies and eighties are set to happen again. For their political gain the Nationalists have undermined Malta in the eyes of the foreign media. First they sent reports to the foreign media and then they pretended to be scandalised at what the foreign media was reporting. And the cherry on the cake was the Leader of the Opposition speaking in the manner that he did on an Italian TV station. History repeating itself indeed.

That is what they used to do in the seventies and eighties. When Mintoff quarelled with Gaddafi over a disputed area where Malta was to drill for oil, an area which the International Court years later decided it belonged to Malta and hence Malta and the Mintoff Government were proved right, elements in the PN did not unite behind the interest of Malta but unashamedly took Libya’s side. In spite of being around ten years old then, I still have a distant memory of jubilant Nationalist supporters singing with a sense of satisfaction “u Gaddafi wahhalulu” (Gaddafi has put him in his right place) during their mass meetings when this incident happened.

On another issue, it was revealed by Wiki Leaks that an infamous Maltese diplomat was continuously informing the British and the Nationalist Party of Mintoff’s moves when Malta was locking horns with NATO and the UK  In another country, this diplomat, who was a Nationalist Party activist, would have been tried for treason.

The famous Malta file which was distributed to the UN members and the international press by another infamous Maltese diplomat also did enormous damage to Malta.

On the other hand, Labour in Opposition supported the Nationalist Party in power when it set up the financial services and the shipping registration acts.

During the Libyan crisis, Joseph Muscat, as Leader of the Opposition, supported Prime Minister Gonzi and indeed helped him in the interest of Malta.

But the Nationalists do not change. They do not learn their lessons, either.

 

Mario Farrugia Borg is contesting the MEP elections on the PL ticket