I must confess. I rely on news portals for information, preferring to read rather than listen or watch the news. Listening is a passive exercise while reading has the added advantage that one can pause, think, re-read or even skip a sentence.  All this is not possible when listening to the news. However, I do make one exception; I listen in to Campus FM. I happened to be listening to the morning programme following the opening ceremony of Malta’s Presidency of the European Union.   The news analyst was politely commenting on the photographs taken on that occasion and attempting to interpret the expressions and body language of the subjects. What struck me in particular were his comments on two personalities present; Archbishop Scicluna and the Leader of the Opposition.

The analyst’s comments on the former were that it seemed he was enjoying himself. As for the latter, who was present with his consort, the analyst had difficulty in interpreting his mood. This does not surprise me.  In my view, Dr. Busuttil’s place was not at the opening ceremony. In fact, he made a mistake in attending. The least he could have done was abandon the ceremony after Juncker’s comments about Muscat. If Muscat has been crowned the best Leader for the presidency of the EU, what was Simon Busuttil doing there? 

In my view, at that moment in time, Dr. Busuttil should have been somewhere else and specifically in America; to be precise at Trump Towers meeting up with the then President-elect, Donald Trump. I am being perfectly serious about this. Trump would have loved to meet the leader of Malta’s Opposition if for no other reason that, at that particular moment, the EU was out in full pomp and circumstance in Malta, for the opening ceremony of the Presidency.  Busuttil’s visit would have demonstrated to the world that he was meeting a real global leader and not an EU nonentity.  If this was not possible, I would have expected the PN diplomacy to be out in full force so that Dr. Busuttil would have been at Trump’s inauguration.   

After Junker’s comments, the PN’s gurus finally realized that the EU has been taking them for a ride. Before election, Muscat had declared that he wanted to make Malta the best country in Europe. What this meant is that Muscat put to good use the time spent in Opposition. He is now reaping the fruits in terms of alliances in Europe. Clearly, Juncker’s Commission is bent on helping him gain a second term, and for this reason, the Commission is willing to turn a blind eye on all sort of irregularities and cases of corruption, even if these cases can be harmful to the European Union. This explains why the Commission supported Muscat in the sale of Maltese passports; an issue that has definitely weakened the EU and the Schengen Treaty.

Also, when Malta was selling visas both in Tripoli and Algiers, the Commission chose to ignore this abuse. In the case of the Marsaxlokk power station, the Commission declared that the power station complies with EU regulations.  I do not wish to enter into the saga of Leo Brincat, or the unique treatment reserved for Brincat and Toni Abela nor for that matter, the Panama papers. These are some of the issues that should have shown the Tal-Pieta’ strategists that ‘something is rotten in the State of Denmark’ - substitute Brussels for Denmark.

Yet, there is more to this than just meeting Trump or attending the inauguration ceremony. When I was still a member of the PN’s Social Commission, I had advised that if the PN wanted to gain international status, it should seek a political rapport with Russia. This idea was shot down from the start. The PN preferred the US. But Obama and his administration were behind Muscat. As somebody who had worked on the PN report of the electoral defeat, I could not understand how a party can go after the American Democrats when they vehemently worked to send Dr. Gonzi into Opposition and were continuously squarely backing Muscat.

It was no coincidence that, in 2012, President Obama replaced ambassador Kmiec with Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley. The issue behind Kmiec’s replacement was not religion. Kmiec was formally accused of having dedicated too much time to Catholicism. Ambercrombie-Winstanley devoted too much time, with the support of Obama and Clinton, to gender politics. In truth, the Obama administration wanted somebody who could support their gender agenda in Malta. Muscat was more than ready to accommodate Obama. This explains why the Democrats helped Labour to win the election. For this reason, I found it foolhardy that the higher echelons of the PN supported Hillary Clinton’s bid for election, when she was dead-set to support Muscat’s re-election. This was political suicide. Now the PN is reaping the fruit of its wrong policies.

If one is tempted to view all this a conspiracy theory, I would like to remind readers that Muscat went to the US on the eve of the American election to be sure to be among the first to congratulate Clinton. Moreover, prior to Trump’s election, our Foreign Office was in full force, working day and night, to pave the way to have Gina Abercrombie here in Malta as one of the guests to be honoured by our President for services to the Republic of Malta. But the unthinkable happened. Trump got elected. Therefore, Castile had to change tactics. Gina Abercrombie remained on the list of those who received an honour but she did not turn up for the ceremony.  

 

If the PN still believes that liberalism is going to be the winning ticket for the Party, it is mistaken. Liberalism is the winning ticket for Muscat and in our system there is only one winner for any ideology. In this game, Muscat is better positioned. As Obama is now out of the way, Muscat’s only ally to help him make it again in for another term, is the EU of Juncker and Tusk. In this game, these two gentlemen will do their utmost to ensure that Muscat is re-elected despite Malta’s presidency being a mess. The issue for Europe is to ensure that Muscat does not use the presidency to damage both Juncker’s and Tusk’s plan in their anti-Trump and anti-Putin strategy. The PN having placed itself with the anti-Putin and anti-Trump front, it has placed the Party into the abyss of political inconsequence.