Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said today that he suspects Malta’s parliament is the only one in Europe where Greece’s bail-out received a unanimous vote twice.
Briefing parliament on yesterday’s summit on Greece’s financial situation, he said: “I very much doubt other parliaments in Europe have shown the same spirit which existed and still exists in Malta,” he said.
“Malta has exposed itself to certain risks when the bail-out was given to Greece, not financially since it is not an exorbitant amount Greece owes Malta. But when one measures it economically, Malta, like Germany is highly exposed, therefore discussions which are under way are very important,” he said.
He continued: “At no stage at European Council level was a request made by Greece to have its debts cut.
“We are in a similar situation whereby we lent money to someone but he or she cannot pay back, and hardly has money to feed his or her family and is asking for some breathing space to be able to pay back since if not, he or she can go bankrupt and then he situation may worsen.
“In no way are we going in the direction whereby we will never see the money we are owed,” Dr Muscat assured parliament.
Prime Minister Muscat also warned that a Greek default and subsequent exit from the Eurozone will not be in anybody’s interests.
Earlier, PN leader Simon Busuttil asked the government to start providing the Opposition with details on such summits beforehand and not after. At this point, former finance minister Tonio Fenech quipped that there won’t be any one spying on the government.
Three civil servants are in the middle of a political storm after they were allegedly caught red-handed passing on sensitive information to Mr Fenech by means of a Google Group account specially set up for this purpose. The government has dubbed these civil servants – who have denied any wrongdoing – ‘spies’.
€1.7 million withdrawn from Greek banks worrying - PM
Dr Muscat said that it is highly worrying to see that as much as 1.7 million euros in savings were withdrawn from Greek banks.
He said that the priority of all involved is to see that eurozone countries do stay within the eurozone.