Tomorrow’s plenary session of the European Parliament will unfortunately be a historic one.

Whatever the diplomatic niceties say, it will sit in judgment on Malta and its rule of law.

While the government has predictably tried to bluff its way out, and tried to turn the tables by putting the Opposition on the defensive, we are in for a session of Malta-bashing, except from the PES side which sides with its Socialist ally, the Government of Malta.

It promises to be a rather rare occurrence when parties who do not normally join each other, take turns to question, to point out, to attack and condemn the way we go about our lives here.

It will be a very sad day for us all, for, at the end, we are all Maltese and nobody likes having his country dragged through the mud.

As our sister Sunday paper said yesterday, Tuesday’s European Parliament debate on the rule of law in Malta, will see the lion’s share of parliamentary groups signing on to a proposed resolution calling on the Police Commissioner to investigate the Panama Papers revelations and the politically-exposed people in the leaked Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit’s reports.

It also calls on the Maltese supervisory and judiciary authorities to investigate the licensing process of Pilatus Bank. A vote on the resolution will be held on Wednesday.

The Socialists and Democrats, (PES) the grouping of which Malta’s Labour Party forms part, has prepared a backup, significantly watered down resolution to be put to a vote should the joint resolution fail to be passed.

But European Parliament sources speaking to TMIS on Saturday said that it would be “near to impossible for joint resolution to not be passed through the EP given the breadth of support it has received”.

The proposed joint resolution is backed by the EPP [of which the Nationalist Party forms part], the ECR, GUE/NGL, ALDE and Verts/ALE parliamentary groupings.

This is only the beginning. After Wednesday’s vote, a commission of MEPs might be asked to come to Malta to investigate the real state of affairs.

Many might think this is all window dressing and that the EP and indeed the EU institutions are toothless when it comes to recalcitrant Member States. Of course, if the EP picks on small Malta but then remains silent when faced with Polish or Hungarian obstinacy, it will be perceived as obnoxious bullying.

But then, Malta being so small, it will be very easy for the EP to exert pressure on the Maltese government. The Commissioner of Justice has publicly toyed with the idea of linking EU funds to the observance or otherwise of the rule of law.

Whatever happens tomorrow and on Wednesday, we would not be in this situation were it not that the government has been pig-headed with regards to those instances where Malta and Maltese persons have been mentioned in circumstances that point at corruption. Malta is the only country with a still serving minister who has been found with an account in Panama. The links with Azeri persons and institutions have been clearly proven. The government’s defence of the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police smacks of special pleading.

The government may face tomorrow’s sitting and Wednesday’s vote with a stony silence but it will be unable to stop these from harming Malta’s good name internationally. The government has only itself to blame.