Not only did the Panama papers scandal negatively affect Malta’s reputation as a country, it also affected Joseph Muscat’s reputation to the point that the Party of European Socialists does not even take heed of what he says or thinks, PN MP and MEP candidate David Stellini said in a Broadcasting Authority aired on Monday night.

He said that this is evidenced by the fact that the Party of European Socialists had included in their manifesto two points which Muscat does not agree with, namely those of abortion and tax harmonisation, and the Prime Minister could not persuade the group to remove the said proposals.

On his part, the Labour Party’s representative at the debate – MEP candidate Robert Micallef – spoke of his disappointment at how the PN had decided to base its campaign on two things which are a matter of national competence.

On abortion, he said that the Labour Party disagrees with the Socialist’s manifesto and has no thought whatsoever to legalise abortion, something which is evidenced by their support in George Vella as the next President.  He also noted that in the nine countries where parties forming part of the European People’s Party (EPP), which the PN is aligned with, all have legalised abortion.

“Our position is that this is not on the agenda, so there’s no reason to try win points with the electorate where there is no means for it”, Micallef said.

He also alleged that the PN’s three current MEPs – Roberta Metsola, Francis Zammit Dimech, and David Casa – had voted in favour of a proposal to remove the requirement for unanimity between countries for tax related decisions to be ratified.

This allegation was however quashed by Stellini who, while holding up the said voting sheet, said that all three of the PN’s MEPs, along with the three PL MEPs, had voted against this resolution, before questioning why the PL was continuing to propagate such a lie.

The debate itself focused primarily on the economy, with Micallef listing the government’s achievements in this sector and saying that the country’s economic growth was even better than what the European Commission had projected, and that the number of people at risk of poverty had gone down by two-thirds in the last six years.

Micallef noted that the government had a strategy which involved investment in both physical and educational fields and added that the government had created more jobs in the past five years than had been created in the previous 25 years, when the PN governed.

Stellini meanwhile said that the government, in actual fact, had no plan at all, noting that they had imported thousands of foreigners when it is clear that the country’s infrastructure cannot cater for them, before adding that he agreed with Finance Minister Edward Scicluna in that the economy has to slow its pace down so that the country’s infrastructure can catch up.

Independent candidate Antoine Borg, campaigning under the moniker of Brain Not Ego, meanwhile spoke of the importance of the manufacturing sector in creating a balanced economy. 

He quoted a study by the Central Bank of England, which found that where there is an increasing services industry there is a widening gap between social classes.  He noted that this hypothesis, based on National Statistics Office, is also applicable to Malta where income inequality is increasing.  He said that the improvement of the manufacturing sector could provide more opportunities and also create a more balanced economy.

Borg also said that he is against the concept of tax harmonisation.

Imperium Europa’s Norman Lowell meanwhile noted that the country’s race and environment is more important than the economy, but lamented that while the economy may look good for those who are employing people with €1 or €2, it does not look good for the many people who cannot afford rent or property.

He said that banks are being “intimidiated” as a result of the dirt thrown at Malta and are not opening accounts for “wealth creators” in the digital industry.  He said that as a result, these people were leaving to countries such as Estonia and Lithuania. 

Lowell also noted that if tax harmonisation is implemented, then so should salary harmonisation and social services and pensions harmonisation.  On the same subject, he said that one of the cardinal principles of Imperium Europe would be to “break the sacred cow that is tax” where in no tax should be more than 10%.