From Mr M. F. Owen MBE

I promise to update your readers about progress regarding the 13 Car Registration issues I raised with the EU via the “Solvit” process. I have copied correspondence over to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and to their credit I have received acknowledgments.

To date I have received nothing from the Maltese Solvit office. No acknowledgment. No. Nothing at all. The EU is committed to resolve issues passed through the Maltese office of Solvit within around 50 days. Even in cases where this office may not feel it has the authority to manage the case, it is under an obligation to respond to the complainant. And/or refer the issue to Brussels for consideration there. Thus far I have been told absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. And the Solvit office is again in my view in total breach of its obligations under the EU treaty of accession.

I have been prompted to write to let your readers know how shabbily the Maltese people are being treated by an EU appointed agency operating in Malta. Under the auspices of a government department no less. I have been spurred forward by yet another letter of gross unfairness I have just received. I shall again refer this case to Solvit although I am in no doubt this Maltese agency will treat the latest complaint issue with the same contempt it has treated every other case I have referred to it. Yet again, a punitive 65 per cent registration tax has been imposed in this case with a further totally unjustifiable, and in my view, unlawful 18 per cent VAT charge. On top of this outrageous and unjustified charge.

In last Sunday’s Times I was slightly relieved to learn that the government will abolish this punitive tax after it wins the next election! It is immoral for any government to suggest an inequitable and unlawful tax should only be withdrawn if it is re-elected! The law was set in place by this government long before accession to the EU and it had years to phase this tax out and replace it within what it is now recommending an eco-friendly tax. If such a replacement tax is justified then it is justifiable now. Not when the government decides. Not simply because the Maltese people vote Labour or Nationalist or whatever. This tax adjustment should have been included in the most recent budget proposals and then decided by popular vote in your Parliament, during the existing session of Parliament. (That is my view and I appreciate that as a foreigner I need to be cautious and should not interfere unduly in Maltese domestic politics. Nevertheless, the lack of courtesy afforded to the Maltese people I am trying to protect spurs me on make this protest and I am sorry for it.)

I am copying this letter to your Prime Minister and to Dr Tonio Borg in the sure knowledge they will want to ask the Solvit office why it is not responding to legitimate correspondence from concerned residents of Malta. And their friends. I am sending copies of the correspondence your readers have kindly forwarded to me for consideration, which I hope will assist the government in its present deliberations about abandoning this evil and vicious tax and replacing it with something that will improve the overall life and safety of the Maltese people. Old cars, belching smoke without airbags are death traps. New cars with near zero carbon emissions and which stop death and serious injury are to be welcomed. Why should the Maltese people endure dangerous vehicles that have been scrapped years since, across the whole of the EU? Please can we scrap the tax and let your readers and their families enjoy a safe and healthy transport environment from now on.

Michael Frank Owen

ZEJTUN