Faced with negative public opinion, both locally and from all over the globe, the new Labour government has been forced to retract its new, albeit ill-reputed, ‘Individual Investor Programme’ (IIP). Following in the footsteps of his Finance Minister, the Prime Minister admitted that Version 1 of the scheme had been hastily pushed through without much discussion and in spite of across-the-board opposition.
The revised Version 2 of the scheme was therefore supposedly intended to make the scheme more palatable. However, as the leader in Friday’s The Malta Independent put it: “What was half-baked before does not necessarily come right with a second baking”. And this cake simply has the wrong ingredients for baking. In essence, and euphemisms apart, this remains a Sale of Citizenship scheme. So it remains wrong in principle and not a scheme that the Nationalist Party can support.
The more things change, the more they remain the same
As announced by the government, and as listed by The Malta Independent, there are five main changes to the scheme. The secrecy clause of the citizenship buyers, Henley and Partners exclusivity on the processing of applications to buy citizenship and Henley and Partners lone role in the due diligence exercise of applicants have all been removed. In addition, a capping setting a limit to the number of applicants to be granted citizenship has now been introduced. Finally, a semblance of investment has been introduced to mask the true nature of the scheme – that is, a straight sale of citizenship rights.
Nonetheless, these amendments leave much to be desired. For instance the introduced capping of 1,800 is a far cry from Edward Scicluna’s declaration to the European Parliament of 50 passport sales per year which would have taken some 35 years to reach the limit of the scheme. The “per year” bit of the Finance minister’s assertion seems to have vanished and technically speaking the limit of 1,800 could be reached within a year. Considering that the scheme entails that each passport sale also holds citizenship rights for family members for an extra minimal fee, it could very well be that the amount would, in fact, be closer to 20,000, or the size of the population of any of Malta’s large towns.
What’s more is that, in substance, the sale element of the scheme remains basically unaltered because, in addition to the one-time payment of €650,000, there is only a new requirement of buying €150,000 worth of government stock and the buying of a €350,000 property, which could be sold after just five years. Further to that, there is no obligation to reside in Malta for any period of time. So it is plainly obvious that the scheme allows for no measure of bonding between the new citizen and his host country and its people. Version 2 of the scheme retains all the elements of a plain sale of citizenship rights: the same elements that have only brought resentment and loss of respect for our country.
The Prime Minister and his team have this knack of calling things by other names. In their latest example, they have called the changes to the failed version of the citizenship scheme “radical” when at most they can only be described as “cosmetic”. They have told us that this is a government that listens, when the facts have shown just the opposite.
The result of persistent stubbornness
The flaws of the citizenship scheme had already been highlighted and debated in parliament, where the Government answered the criticism by using its hefty nine-seat majority to defeat the Opposition and its proposed amendments to the law providing for the sale of citizenship.
The fact that most of the announced amendments reflect the same defeated amendments is, if anything, a sign of a hasty decision by an arrogant government retreating under pressure, and not of a government that listens. Government spin doctors must confuse the meaning of listening with that of hearing. Suffice it to say that the infamous secrecy clause was dismissed by government just a couple of days after the same government ignored across the broad criticism and pushed it through parliament. Suffice it to say that, even in the face of all the criticism endured because of the very concept of selling citizenship, we are once again being presented with another version of the law which changes anything but the very concept of sale of citizenship.
In fact the negotiations between the government and Opposition failed just because of that. It is clear by now that the positions of the two parties are diametrically opposed on basis of principle. The Nationalist Party was and remains a party in favour of private investment but tarnishing our reputation by selling our identity to sustain government spending due to the government’s inability to generate sufficient economic growth is, to put it mildly, a step too far.
The sale of citizenship debate will take us to the New Year
In spite of the impression given by government, representatives of civil society would not have had sufficient time to analyse the impact of the amendments to the scheme, at least not until their announcement by the Prime Minister a few hours following the collapse of the negotiations between government and opposition with previously undisclosed content.
And maybe that is the reason, why at this stage, the Prime Minister was accompanied by either people representing government entities like Joe Bannister, whose presence to endorse the scheme could have been avoided considering that he had been, until a few hours before, chairing the negotiations as a supposedly neutral party, or by members of non-governmental organisations acting on a personal basis like Tony Zahra, a former President of the Malta Hotels & Restaurants Association and a businessman. Of course there is no surprise in others like the General Workers Union joining the fray even if holding dubious pretexts disguising partisan alliances or sectoral interest against the collective national interest.
As Government has chosen to only cosmetically amend the scheme instead of an scrapping it outright, it is assumed that the foreign media will keep following developments closely and our country may be subjected to further humiliation if things are not handled with care. Eyebrows will still be raised, especially in European quarters where Labour’s scheme is being perceived as an abuse of EU citizenship and Schengen rules.
One should expect the debate to be rekindled following the Christmas recess, even if the government has thought it fit to bury the issue in the Christmas festivities. It is already known that the issue will be debated in the European Parliament in January and if the proposed amendments to the law are to go through, the debate has to return to the national Parliament. Hopefully, the discussion will also engage both civil society and Maltese citizens, whom the law targets directly, in a meaningful way. Until then I wish all the readers of this newspaper a Happy New Year.
Mr Puli is the Shadow Minister for the Family & Social Solidarity