Greens MEP Sven Giegold, and a few of his colleagues, will be writing to the European Commission requesting that they investigate into whether infringement procedures should be opened against Malta for possible violations in the anti-money laundering directive and the capital investment directive.

He  said that he cannot vouch for whether or not what was said in the FIAU reports (regarding Keith Schembri, Pilatus Bank etc) were true, but said that enhanced due diligence for foreign persons was not done adequately. "There is also the question whether certain articles were violated."

Giegold was speaking during a press conference. He also spoke with The Malta Independent seperately and explained that this is about the authorities and whether they enforce the Maltese implementation of European law.

Referring to the leaked FIAU reports (which have led to magisterial inquiries into OPM Chief of Staff Keith Schembri - regarding kickbacks for the IIP scheme, payments to Adrian Hillman -, Pilatus Bank etc), Giegold said: "I have to say that this is serious, as with these leaked FIAU reports, one can have doubts whether the Maltese institutions function as they should. If the reports are original, they shows this institution has functioned, and things were researched which is a good sign, but what is a bad sign is that prosecutions were not opened and this is worrying and is not what we have in European legislation. The law must be enforced."

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The FIAU observed the law but can't enforce it as it must be done by the police. This is very worrying and of course the norms which were violated, according to the FIAU reports, have their routes in European law. 

"Obviously all this is under the presumption of innocence. Our party has not called for the resignation of the Maltese government or Prime Minister Joseph Muscat because we believe that such calls should be made on fully established truth. But what is worrying in the case of the FIAU reports is that after they are published, the Finance Minister called into question the people who wrote these reports, while it seems that there is no consequence of the substance of the report. Even if a part of the report is not factual, which I cannot judge, normally under rule of law such reports should have consequences on the level of prosecution and of course one could find the allegations are unfounded, but the procedure should be fully opened and followed and it is worrying that this is not the case."

Following the request, the Commission will need to take a decision, and if it finds against Malta, then Malta would be obliged to follow the decision. If it does not the European Commission could take it to court and then there would be a fine until the law is fully applied. Normally this is done on failure of transposing law, but can also be used on failing to implement it.  He explained that any citizen can write to the Commission to request such action. "I will, be signing the request as Greens Coordinator with some colleagues. This is a normal mechanism and I have written about other countries and cases."

"In Malta it seems neither Panama Papers nor FIAU reports have triggered serious prosecution procedures or investigations. The Commission now needs to look into the facts of the Maltese institution to get the fully fledged investigation. I congratulate Muscat for winning the elections but this is not a replacement for getting the facts straight. Lastly we also call on the Maltese Parliament to support PANA committee activities so that Maltese Parliament can also open with their own investigation committee in their own sovereign rights.

Discussing the upcoming plenary about Malta, Giegold said: "This plenary is unprecedented. We know there was a similar procedure for Hungary regarding democracy and rule of law, but this time it was on the Greens initiative to ask Muscat to appear after a number of important people did not agree to appear before the PANA committee."

"There were many revelations and allegations in the Maltese media, and in the Panama Papers Malta was the only country where members of government were found to have Panama offshore companies. In the last weeks there were publications of FIAU reports which showed further alleged involvement of government members for money laundering or kickback operations. This is a worrying situation"

"This is reason for us to ask Muscat what action will be taken."

This is the letter sent to the European Commission