Whatever kind of gloss the government has attempted to put on the European Parliament’s vote or the words of the European Commission this week, the simple fact remains that the vast majority of the representatives of Europe’s citizens, and by default Europe’s citizens themselves, have denounced outright the Maltese government’s citizenship scheme.

And no matter how much the government may argue that the European Parliament’s resolution on the Citizenship for Sale plenary debate was not only about Malta, the fact of the matter remains that there is no other EU member state that offers such an advantageous, market-orientated option for gaining EU citizenship and opening the doors to Europe as a whole. Comparisons, it is said, are odious, but the government’s comparisons to the Austrian scheme, for example, are even more odious if not downright misleading.

Yes, the resolution that was passed by just short of 90 per cent of the Members of European Parliament on Thursday is non-binding, but the Maltese government’s apparent contempt for the views of the representatives of Europe’s citizens borders on despicability.

The sheer defiance of the MEPs’ overwhelming vote against Malta’s plans for its citizenship base - because after all that was what the debate was really about, as was crystal clear to anyone who followed it - is also a defiance not only of the European Parliament but a defiance of the people of Europe as a whole. That defiance was evidenced by the Prime Minister’s statement the following day that the programme is actually in action.

It is inconceivable that the Nationalist Party had lobbied so hard in the lead-up to the vote as to persuade virtually the whole of the EP to “vote against the Maltese government”. It is equally inconceivable that Malta’s Labour MEPs stood any chance of swaying their fellow Socialists from their set position, which they did not manage to do by any stretch of the imagination.

One can understand that the government has a lot riding on the citizenship scheme, perhaps more than we know at the moment. An extra billion euros is nothing to be sniffed at after all, and the political gain from splashing that kind of cash around before the next general election will create no insignificant feel good factor. That explains why the government continues to insist that the Opposition is “panicking”.

True, but there must be something more than Maltese partisan politics to the Opposition’s stance against the programme given the turnout of votes on Thursday – if this was purely a Maltese affair, the European Parliament would have most probably not even have bothered to debate the subject.

But the fact of the matter is that it is not a purely Maltese affair, far from it. Yes, the granting of citizenship by a nation is a sovereign issue and a matter of national competence.

This appears to be the government’s cardinal point in the great European citizenship debate – a point that cannot be denied. But the central point to the whole controversy is that the nation that Malta is granting citizenship to is the nation of EU states, and not only the Maltese nation. Frankly, it is strange that there have been no minimum standards applied to the issuance of EU passports.

The area has up to now existed in something of a lacuna with no set rules. Until now, because due to Malta’s machinations and, as others have put it, its defiance not only of the European Parliament but of the very spirit of the European Union, that will change.

Now, as the European Commission goes about examining whether Malta’s citizenship law violates any aspect of the EU’s Treaties - and while it has already apparently found some violations of the Treaties, rest assured it will be doing its utmost to find more, Malta’s good and hard-earned name will only be dragged further in the mud.

If it does find a violation of EU rules, there is the lengthy infringement procedure that must be respected and which has several formal stages, the last of which would entail dragging Malta before the European Court of Justice. But before that there is the letter of formal notice and Malta’s answer to that, then the Commission’s reasoned opinion, and then the commencement of the case before the European Court of Justice if matters end up going that far.

But while these procedures drag on, possibly for years, Malta will continue to implement the citizenship programme, in a sign of utter disdain for the opinion of the rest of Europe on a matter that affects the whole of the bloc.

In the meantime, the Commission has warned of the “negative consequences” of Malta ploughing ahead with the citizenship scheme. Although the Commission did not specify what those negative consequences could be at the end of the day, it would not be too far-fetched to envisage Malta’s Schengen and other rights being curtailed in the meantime.

Not only does Malta appear to be isolated on the issue, as the Opposition repeatedly claims, but through the citizenship scheme and its defiance of the European Parliament, it is running the risk of turning Malta into the black sheep of the bloc.

To avoid this unsavoury prospect, the government must now find a way to tweak the programme once again and in such a way as to make it far more acceptable to its EU peers. The kind of intransigent defiance of the opinion of the European Parliament, and whatever further defiance the government may have in store as matters develop, will get the country nothing but more defiance in return. Defiance will only breed more defiance. The government should not believe that the matter will rest where it is at the moment.