The Socialist Group, home to the four Labour Maltese MEPs in the European Parliament, has joined forces with the European People’s Party (EPP), the Liberals (ALDE) and the Greens to co-sign a cross party joint resolution on ‘EU Citizenship for Sale’.

“The cross party resolution calls on Malta to put its citizenship scheme in line with EU values and underlines its concern with this way of getting citizenship in Malta and emphasises that any such national citizenship schemes undermine the very concept of European citizenship”, explained MEP Roberta Metsola.

“It is astounding that the resolution was co-signed by the Socialist group in the EP at the same time as the Labour Party in Malta issued a statement claiming the Socialists here understood Malta’s position – Labour MEPs really have no idea what is going here”, stated Head of the PN Delegation David Casa.

The resolution includes strong language that highlights that rights conferred through EU citizenship are based on human dignity and should not be bought or sold at any price. 

The resolution calls for the European Commission to assess the various citizenship schemes in light of European values and notes that EU Citizenship implies a stakeholding with the Union.

The resolution comes after days of tough negotiations involving numerous MEPs from across the political divide.

The resolution will be debated tomorrow and be voted upon on Thursday.

In a joint statement MEPs David Casa and Roberta Metsola reiterated:

“It should never have come to this - but Joseph Muscat’s insistence on ramming through this scheme and ignoring all opposition has led to Malta’s name continuing to be dragged through the mud.

Even if Joseph Muscat has ignored all attempts to reason, perhaps he will now listen to his own Party in the European Parliament. Despite the political attacks on us, the Nationalist MEPs will continue to defend the interests of the majority of the population that wants no part in this scheme. What we are saying here is that this this scheme is being pushed through ‘not in our name’. Once more we appeal to the Prime Minister – you are the only one that can stop this damage being done to our country: amend the scheme and do it immediately”

Full resolution in pdf below

/uploads/filebrowser/2014-01 EU Citizenship for sale FN.pdf

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In a statement, the Labour Party said the original resolution had much stronger words and was changed on the insistence of the European Socialists after the PN MEPs insisted that Malta should be condemned.

David Casa and Roberta Metsola insisted with their campaign against Malta and that the resolution should condemn the country for its IIP programme.

Several socialist delegations and other MEPs are supporting the position taken by the Maltese government and some deplored the campaign made by the Nationalist MEPs.