From the inspiring to the soporific, from the well-prepared to the hastily put together, in more than a decade as a Member of the House of Representatives, I think I have seen all the shapes and sizes that Parliamentary speeches can come in. I had reached the point of thinking that parliamentary life did not have any more surprises in store for me – until last week.
Labour’s answer to the financial services sector
Parliament is debating the Bill amending the Maltese Citizenship Act. This is the one that will make being Maltese something to be placed on the market to the bought and sold – like groceries or second-hand cars. Manwel Mallia had the floor. He brushed off the criticism of my colleague Jason Azzopardi as being the Opposition’s “envy” of this marvellous piece of government legislation, having done nothing of the sort in the 25 years it was in office.
It was one of those moments when your eyebrows disappear into your hairline and your jaw drops so low you feel the surface of the desk pressing hard against your chin. Government evidently thinks this is its “big idea” which, despite being “big” and so well thought out, did not feature in its election manifesto.
The new Labour government seems to think that its new plan to cheaply sell citizenship to foreigners is its answer to the previous government’s creation of the pretty successful niche of financial services and assumes that the Nationalist Opposition is now kicking itself in the backside for not having thought of it first.
Who is envious of a cheap sale?
Dr Mallia can rest assured that the Opposition is not remotely interested in challenging Labour’s claim to exclusive paternity of the scheme. During our years in office, we did not lose the opportunity to make substantial changes to the regulations regarding citizenship, whenever change was called for. We have, for example, addressed discriminatory provisions that permitted Maltese citizenship through the mother but not the father – a vestige from a time when it was assumed that the paternal nationality was “stronger”.
We also introduced dual citizenship and those Maltese who emigrated and on whom the unfair choice of “either the country of birth or the country of adoption” had been imposed could once again regain their Maltese citizenship. Many availed themselves of this opportunity, thinking less of the legal advantages this gave them and more of the affirmation of the love and attachment they still retained for this country.
The category of “new Maltese” this amendment to the Maltese Citizenship Act will create would not give a hoot if this country sank beneath the waves as long as they still retained the right and privileges of possessing an EU passport. Rights and privileges for the Maltese which, I hasten to add, were acquired thanks to the PN. Rights acquired in the face of belligerent opposition from Labour. Remember the claims that membership of the EU would mean a loss of sovereignty and identity? Now we know how genuine and sincerely felt those claims were.
Not the scheme of a self-respecting nation
Dr Mallia’s fantastic imaginings of envy from the other side of the House is just a puerile way of compensating for the simple fact that the Bill is indefensible. No self-respecting country, no nation with a shred of dignity, sells off something so fundamental and dear to it in the way that this Bill is proposing to sell citizenship. Nobody but nobody had a good word to say about this Bill, except, that is, for the concessionary company that will be implementing the scheme. Considering the lucrative private monopoly it has been granted on the whole enterprise, and the hefty commission on every Maltese passport they will sell, to expect them to react otherwise would be like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas.
Nobody has bought in the law ostensibly linking the scheme to “investment”. As a country we welcome investment because, apart from legitimate profit for the investor, it adds to the country’s wealth and employment opportunities. The more it adds to Malta’s GDP, and the number and quality of jobs, the more we value this investment. This scheme does nothing of the sort. It is an investment only as far as it profits the applicant.
The national interest
But no MP, on either side of the House, holds a brief for those people. We serve (or should serve) the interests of Malta and the Maltese. As the leader of the Opposition aptly put it, the selling of Maltese citizenship is not simply the selling of passports to the rich. It is the selling of the nation’s soul to people who do not necessarily have the nation’s interests at heart. Considering the scheme as it is as not being in the genuine national interest, the Nationalist Party, if elected to government, would not exclude the retrieving cancellation of the scheme and the passports issued by this government.
The scheme might add to the country’s revenue but it will do no more than pay for our bloated Cabinet, Ministry secretariats and phantom jobs for people who lent their face to Labour’s election billboards. Meanwhile, official statistics have been published showing a 12 per cent increase in the number of unemployed over the same period last year. Real investment is needed.
Clyde Puli is a Nationalist Party Member of Parliament and the Opposition’s spokesman for education