The Labour Party and Nationalist MEPs this morning exchanged heated statements on European Parliament votes, hitting out at each other on the vote taken on the PANA report that tackled Malta’s financial services.

In a first statement, Labour MEPs Alfred Sant, Miriam Dalli and Marlene Mizzi said that the impression given by the PN representatives of “serving as a shield for Malta” is false.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament narrowly rejected a proposal by the Socialists group in the EP, which includes the Labour Party, to describe Malta as a tax haven. All Maltese MEPs voted against the idea.

In their statement, the Labour MEPs said the PN delegation gave up positions on taxation that no Maltese government had ever given up.

The Labour MEP said they voted against the socialist proposal, and found enough socialist members and others from different groups to vote against or abstain on this issue.

The Nationalist MEPs cannot be believed when they said that the amendment failed because of their work, the Labour MEPs said. Over the past months, PN MEPs spoke harshly about what they say is the collapse of the rule of law in Malta, corruption in the financial services sector and tax evasion, causing great harm to the country. They also supported a motion which “gave the impression” that the rule of law in Malta is under threat.

Such positions created a strong current against Malta, the Labour MEPs said.

They added that the PN MEPs had voted in favour of the removal of the veto given to national governments on tax issues, introducing a tax system which is common to all countries and that tax agreements reached with non-EU countries should be carried out by the European Commission – all of which had been previously rejected by all Maltese governments.

In reply through the European People’s Party, the PN MEPs said that the three Labour MEPs continued to defend Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and Minister Konrad Mizzi, with the result that they have distanced themselves from the socialist group of which they are a part.

The PN MEPs challenged their Labour counterparts to say whether they still form part of the socialist group. Yesterday, the Labour MEPs had the chance to decide whether to defend Muscat, Mizzi and Schembri, or the interests of the Maltese people – they ended up defending the Castille trio, the PN MEPs said.

The three Labour MEPs failed to convince their colleagues that Malta is not a tax haven, the PN MEPs said.