A proud Emmanuel Bezzina, former head of Malta’s butchers in so many issues in the past, owner of Stella Maris Butcher in front of the Stella Maris church in Sliema, yesterday called the media to announce he is now getting fresh meat (not frozen, he insists) direct from Italy.

Bistecca Fiorentina sells at Lm6.50 a kilo in his shop, even cheaper than in Italy, where it is sold for euro 24.

The certificates show that this meat comes from an animal which was slaughtered on 18 May and then driven down by road for the crossing to Malta.

Maltese meat is high quality as well, Mr Bezzina hurried to state, but all through the EU campaign he had been publicly expressing his firm belief “that things will be better with EU membership. I thus felt I had to prove my point. The prices are still experimental, but now people in Malta can enjoy the same kind of meat that fellow Europeans are enjoying in Turin and Florence.”

Fresh meat has never been imported from Italy he claims.

This new venture came about due to his friendship with the famed Dario Cecchini, the well-known Italian butcher made famous by his “funeral for the Bistecca” he had held in the dark days of the Mad Cow disease before that cut was banned. Mr Cecchini is also a personal friend of Prince Charles, who prefers his meat when he visits Tuscany.