One of the promises upon which the PL built its victory at the last election was the transformation of Malta into the best of EU Member States. At face value, this promise sounded charming, but in reality, it was nothing but a pre-electoral gimmick. What proves me right are the past nine months, during which the new PL government did its best not to fulfil its promise and instead, showed everyone that it has no European vocation.

One case where this occurred, was irregular immigration. A once and for all solution to this problem was a pre-electoral promise of the PL and many were simply awaiting the new government to unveil its roadmap in this respect. Instead, to their disappointment, the PL government showed that it was unprepared to face this issue and went into panic mode soon after the arrival of the first immigrants. The attempted push-backs, so openly in conflict with European and international rules and the bullying tone used against the whole of the EU were indicative of this panic.

The behaviour of the PL government was a demonstration of its weakness rather than its strength and served only to induce the other EU Member States to take a defensive position. In fact, the PL government did not manage to persuade the said EU Member States on the burden sharing, which was and remains its declared aim. Worse than this, after these developments the other EU Member States stopped taking immigrants from Malta as they have been voluntarily doing before.

All this shows that the strategy adopted by the PL government failed miserably. Malta cannot persuade the other European Member States to help on the issue of irregular immigration by simply stamping down its feet. Instead, Malta has to raise valid arguments such as the need for more surveillance and assistance centres directly on the North-African and Middle-Eastern shores and also more European aid and investment for the countries where irregular immigration originates. The question here is whether the PL will ever realize that the only persuasion method that works is this.

The absence of a European vocation within the PL transpired also from the citizenship on sale scheme and the PL’s insistence to introduce it at all costs. I say so, because by selling the Maltese citizenship, Malta is also going to sell the EU citizenship and this can affect negatively the whole of the EU. In fact, what up to now is a privilege reserved to EU citizens will become something that any rich individual coming from outside the EU, can buy and use as he pleases. Such a blow was the least the Europeans were expecting in 2013, the year ironically dedicated by the EU to citizens.

The repercussions of the scheme are now frightening the EU. In fact, all the political groups represented in the European Parliament, including the Social-Democrats to which the PL is affiliated, agreed without hesitation to discuss the issue on the 15th of January. My fear is that Malta will be heavily reprimanded and that such will add to the international embarrassment that Malta is in at the moment because of this initiative.

Of course, everybody understands why the PL is persisting with this scheme. On the one hand, it urgently needs cash to meet the vastness of pre-electoral promises made. On the other, it needs to sell EU citizenships to who knows how many third country individuals, that presumably financed its last campaign. Naturally, this is only in the interest of the PL and certainly not in that of Malta and the EU. So, the sooner the PL realizes this, the better, because the PL was elected to govern in Malta’s best interest, which also includes the preservation of a good relationship between our country and the EU and the opportunities attached thereto. This is why the PL should act wisely and abandon the present sale of citizenship scheme.

Now, on whether the PL will be able to do this, my doubts are as strong as those on whether the PL will be able to abandon its hysteria attacks and co-operate with the EU in view of a definite solution on irregular immigration. Doubts are so strong, because by now the PL has convinced me that it is a Party without a European vocation and worse than this, a Party without the desire to attain it. For me, it is very hard to think differently, especially after the PL’s decision to nominate for the upcoming European Parliament election a candidate like Dr. Alfred Sant whose anti-EU baggage is so extraordinarily known.

Dr. Kevin Cutajar

PN candidate for the European Parliament election)

Email. [email protected]

Website. www.kevincutajar.com