I couldn’t help but begin this column with what were – sadly – not the famous last words of the Speaker of the House. What were the odds that, faced with all the excitement of addressing a bunch of very big cheeses, he would fluff his lines as he has done so often before? “It gives me great welcome and pleasure to you all to the House of Representatives,” he said. Did I hear that right? Could you play it back, please? Yes, that’s what he said. A dry comment from across the room as I played it again: “Just be grateful he didn’t actually say ‘It gives me great welcome to pleasure you all’.” Somehow, those listening kept a straight face. Fortunately, most of them are continentals who speak Globish and wouldn’t have noticed. The rest of us just listened and laughed.
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The first day of Malta’s presidency of the EU Council, and despite the billboard boast that “We’ll welcome 2,500 journalists” (because welcoming is a big thing for an island of natives with a tourism complex), the coverage was less than fabulous – unlike Mrs Muscat’s gold satin Jedi cloak at last night’s celebrations.
The morning brought a big article in The Guardian, titled ‘Malta accused of being tax haven as it takes EU presidency’. And the afternoon brought an even bigger, more detailed and wide-ranging, piece in Politico, called ‘Corruption allegations tarnish Malta’s EU presidency’. The Politico article gives a clear picture of the absurdity of a situation in which the European bosses will discuss fiscal harmony presided over by a government led by a man who refuses to do anything about his chief of staff and a cabinet minister who are embroiled in the Panama Papers scandal.
It wasn’t much better back home on the ranch, either. Somebody in the inner bowels of the Office of the Prime Minister’s propaganda department clearly thought it would be an excellent idea to have Konrad Mizzi’s ship of gas come into port on Day One of the EU Council presidency, and to make the number one news item of their big day a press conference starring the very cabinet minister who has poisoned everything. They should have hidden Konrad Mizzi on their big day, but instead they not only wheeled him out after several months in hiding, but they also handed the stage to him, elbowing out everyone else. And they also made sure to offend people further by having him host a press conference, on a cold and windy beach head, accompanied by the European Commissioner for Energy. They thought people and the press would be impressed. Instead, we were shocked at their brass neck, and at the lack of respect shown to the Maltese public by the European Commissioner who lent his name to Konrad Mizzi’s corruption and that of his bosses.
It didn’t quite go as planned. Mizzi stood there making it obvious that he hadn’t lost the energy portfolio at all and that the Prime Minister had taken us for fools and lied to us. “We have a big celebration,” he told journalists. They didn’t care. Deprived for months of the opportunity to confront Mizzi, they didn’t want to talk about anything but the Panama Papers. They certainly didn’t want to talk about his big celebration or his gas. But as soon as they broke in with questions about his Panama company and the million dollars he planned on putting in his shady bank account, he ducked his head, rushed towards his car, and slipped in, warning them disingenuously not to get their hands caught in his car-door. And so the headlines were not about his gas or his power station – which isn’t his anyway, so where were the Electrogas shareholders this morning? – but ‘Konrad Mizzi does a runner’. Yes, the big story of the morning was how the man who shouldn’t be there at all, but standing in the dock facing a prison term, had run away from reporters.
It was such a mess. What on earth possessed them? They have turned this country into a circus act, and they just don’t give a damn. The personal gains to be made must be quite phenomenal if they are prepared to do all this damage to Malta and not bother about it.
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