A friend of mine was heading back to Malta from a non-Schengen country. When she handed her passport to the immigration officer, he checked it and, before he gave it back to her, snidely asked: “Do you want to sell it?”

She was taken aback and too embarrassed to find a quick answer in her defence – and that of her country – and quickly walked away, head held low in shame. Looking back, she saw the immigration officer grinning behind her back while one of his colleagues looked on, amused by what had taken place.

As she recounted her story, she said that she felt as if she had gone back nearly 30 years when, on her first travels, she was looked at suspiciously wherever she went because of the green passport Maltese citizens were obliged to carry when going abroad. An avid traveller, she had toured most of Europe as a teenager and, with the Schengen agreement still two decades away, she had to hand in her passport each time she entered an airport to either depart or arrive. It was the only part of her travels that she hated.

“Thirty years ago, we were ashamed of having to show our green passport. What happened this time made me feel as if I was holding that green passport all over again,” she said.

This short story epitomises what many Maltese think about the citizenship scheme that the government will stubbornly introduce this year.

The government has chosen to plough on with the sale of Maltese passports, despite the international backlash late last year and the Opposition’s insistence that the scheme as proposed should be revised to remove the impression that Maltese citizenship is being put up for sale.

To make a quick buck, the government has ignored the ridicule the country had to face (and will continue to face) once the scheme appeared in the foreign media. Yes, it has tweaked the original idea – it has made it slightly more expensive (but for potential buyers it would be like purchasing a bag of peanuts) and it has capped the number at 1,800, but the result remains the same: foreigners will still be able to buy a Maltese passport without setting foot on the island. Worse, the idea that Maltese citizenship is being sold has remained part and parcel of the government’s plan.

It must be made clear that, today, a Maltese passport is a European passport: something the Labour Party wanted to prevent real Maltese citizens from having in its harsh campaign against European membership at the turn of the century, it now wants to make available very cheaply to others who simply have no right to it. Maybe this is Labour’s way of avenging itself for losing the battle over the EU.

The bond to which Finance Minister Edward Scicluna referred in his notorious address to a European Parliament committee in December is not a bond at all. Foreigners wanting a Maltese passport are not required to purchase property here; they can simply rent a place at a rate which is much cheaper than the minimum that has been established for buying property.

So while the government is boasting of having raised the threshold to €1.15 million for a passport, technically, buyers can get hold of a passport for much less – they can opt for €80,000 in rental expenses over five years rather than the €350,000 minimum established in the scheme to buy property.

It is easy to predict that anyone interested will go for the cheaper option, and although the Malta Developers Association was quick to publicly come out to praise the scheme (no surprise there: developers and property owners stand to be the ones who benefit most from this), their profits will certainly be much lower than they are expecting.

One other issue that the government has so far failed to explain clearly is the 1,800 capping it has established. The scheme as proposed allows buyers to purchase a passport for €650,000 plus property/property rent/shares but they can also get a passport for an unspecified number of relatives at a much cheaper rate – and this, of course, without the extra passport holders needing to make their own investment (can it be called such if it is just rent?) in property or financial instruments.

Now, the question is, will the additional passports sold to relatives be part of the 1,800 limit? Or is the 1,800 cap referring only to the single passports that are linked also to property and shares? If it is the latter – and my suspicions are that it is – the 1,800 passports “available” will actually mean many more than that.

There are two other considerations on the limit imposed. Firstly, the capping of the scheme at 1,800 individual passports is a decision that gives the game away regarding the government’s intentions. It wants to make money, and wants to make it immediately. It is the only idea it has come up with to boost the economy since taking over the country’s administration. But, then, what’s to stop the government from extending the scheme, once the 1,800 figure is reached?

Secondly, my reading of it is that the government established a limit to appear to be making a concession and perhaps rebut accusations that it wanted to flood Europe with non-Maltese people holding Maltese/European passports. But what it failed to see is that even by selling one, just one, passport in this way it will annihilate the value of being Maltese and all that is associated with it.

When a price-tag is put on something that is inestimable it becomes worthless.

 

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