We are still some days away from the resumption of political life in Europe but we can already see clouds gathering over the horizon on all sides.
Post-Brexit Europe is not a happy place at all. It has suffered a hard blow when one of its bigger members decided to up and leave.
The referendum itself came too late to impact on the season just past. It is only now that the full impact starts to be felt, even before the UK invokes the Clause 50.
And one huge item on Europe’s agenda is to strengthen procedures all round to stop the rot – any trace of corruption whose unveiling will weaken Europe at a time when Europe is at its most fragile.
At this time Malta is finding itself in the crosshairs.
It is preparing to be, for the very first time in its history, the president of Europe. Much against the misgivings of many states.
And Malta is now finding itself at the centre of controversy because of the passports scheme created and marketed by the prime minister in person.
Allied to this there are the related issues of the visa scam which is still reverberating across Europe and which have multiple impacts due to the Schengen agreement.
Malta is being portrayed in the international press as Europe’s weak point, Europe’s unguarded back door. By giving a person residence or citizenship of Malta, that person is free to roam all over Europe with no questions asked and no checks being done. In this day of terrorism, this verges on the insane.
It is easy to look ahead and foresee hard questioning coming our way especially in the first weeks of January when Maltese ministers will troop up to the European Parliament to be questioned as to the policies to be followed. It is inevitable that some questions will regard IIP and the visa scam.
Into this scenario of gathering clouds same the series of articles focusing on the passport scheme, especially the article in Politico which has added a new and worrying dimension to the whole thing.
It has shown that IIP may have been a creation of this government, vainly opposed by the Opposition, but the legal offices who have been applying for passports include some active Opposition MPs, some former PN MPs or even ministers and many more besides. The full details sound like a roll-call of PN sympathisers.
The sniggers from the government side drowned all other sounds yesterday.
There is no question here of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. These lawyers privileged their professional jobs over their political convictions. Or rather, their political beliefs were never that solid.
So now we have both government and Opposition joined together in a toxic scheme that is stinking all over Europe. And Europe, which never really wanted us in, is preparing to step in and enforce changes.
Those who rather weakly object that the IIP scheme is the only one that has been approved by Europe will now see how Europe’s approvals mean nothing when Europe, like now, is up in arms. With the right wing threatening to upset governments in so many countries, especially France and even Germany, Europe cannot afford to appear weak.