The problem is: we’re selling something that isn’t ours to sell

Daphne Caruana Galizia Thursday, 16 January 2014, 08:03 Last update: about 11 years ago

The debate in the European Parliament yesterday evening was dominated, as expected, by the view that citizenship should not be sold. After Malta’s name was removed from the original resolution for debate, leaving the statement a general one about the sale of citizenship, the debate took place with Malta as the big, pink, spangled elephant in the room.

Claudette Abela Baldacchino, who is in the European Parliament on the Labour ticket, stood up to make a giant fuss because this was supposed to be a debate about citizenship, so it wasn’t fair that everyone was mentioning Malta non-stop. The chair replied: “You are right that the title of the debate is about citizenship, but you know better than I do that the reason we are having it is because of Malta.”

For somebody who is accustomed to speaking on television and is not exactly a tongue-tied sort, Marlene Mizzi, another Labour MEP, took the strange decision to read from a crib-sheet rather than speaking with confidence and conviction. Her read statement showcased the usual ‘Labour government = Malta’ mentality that brought this country to its isolated knees under Joseph Muscat’s predecessors. It was wall-to-wall navel-gazing and paranoia. Malta is being “attacked”. It’s not fair Malta is being “picked on”. Decisions on Maltese citizenship are a sovereign matter and the European Parliament should not interfere in Malta’s sovereignty.

I suppose she missed the point made so clearly by Commissioner Reding (I made the same point myself several times over, but you would expect Marlene Mizzi and the Labour Party to dismiss my views as partisan rather than logical) that Maltese is not selling Maltese citizenship but EU citizenship, and that this impacts on the rest of the European Union. So obviously, the rest of the European Union is bound to have a view on that.

Viviane Reding said that Malta’s plans run contrary to the EU Treaty and to international law. She also commented, with a sardonic edge that many probably took literally: “I am not aware that I was consulted on this.”

She said that the very idea of tying citizenship to money and selling it for cash shocks her, because the granting of citizenship should depend on a genuine link or tie to the country in question.

Citizenship of an EU member state is not just national citizenship, she said, but an entry-door to the European Union, the EU Treaty and EU rights, and it “must not be up for sale”. Nor should it depend on the size of your bank account, because “it cannot be taken lightly and one can’t put a price tag on it”.

Roberta Metsola, who is in the European Parliament on the Nationalist Party ticket, told that forum that most Maltese are against this business but those who actually do speak out against it are labelled traitors (or enemies of the state). “No political attack will stop me,” she said.

Joseph Cuschieri, the Labour MEP, rather oddly said that focussing on Malta in the debate would “create a precedent”. Perhaps he doesn’t understand that what this is all about is Malta itself creating a precedent: if Malta can sell passports for cash, then what’s to stop all the other 27 member states doing exactly the same, except their common sense and their desire to pull together for the common good?

David Casa spoke of how unhappy people are in Malta with the bad press this scheme has caused and the damage done to Malta’s reputation.

John Attard Montaldo (he’s been largely invisible, so perhaps I need to remind you that he is on the Labour ticket) accused Viviane Reding of scapegoating Malta with her comments, though she “had a point” about her legal arguments.

We now await the vote on this resolution today. That vote is not binding on Malta, but the fact remains that when you are part of a club you don’t rub everybody else the wrong way by defiantly using common property to your personal advantage on the understanding that nobody else will be quite so crass as to do the same. That is the real problem here: Malta understands all the rights of EU membership but apparently couldn’t be bothered with the obligations.