There’s lots of talk on the new normal. Health authorities around the world are encouraging their citizens to get used to wearing face masks, to respect social distancing laws and wash their hands more often than usual.

When corruption was the norm, mass protests hoped to shift the nation into a new normal: where laws apply to everyone and where illegal actions have prescribed consequences. Months ago, the largest political earthquake shook the nation’s very foundations. Our international reputation plummeted and trust in the institutions tasked with protecting our democracy fell. A public inquiry was initiated, as were criminal investigations into key political figures. The holder of the title of the most corrupt politician in the world, Joseph Muscat, succumbed to political pressure.

Yet with all that political carnage, the corrupt actors who should have fell along with our reputation did not. The disgraced Joseph Muscat is still walking in and out of Parliament as an Onorevoli. Not only are they still standing, but they’re flourishing just as they did under Muscat’s administration. It seems that as far as corruption is concerned, living in Mafialand is still normal.

Because it isn’t just disheartening to read that Nexia BT, the audit firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal, has been awarded a new licence. It isn’t short of irony that this licence requires “high standards of conduct and compliance”. It goes to show that the lessons Malta should have learnt following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia have continued to go on unheeded.

We know who the hitmen allegedly were, and we know who allegedly paid them. But even if we assume our political leaders didn’t have the means to stop them, they must shoulder responsibility to change what they can to make Malta a stronger democracy, not a weaker one.

Years after Daphne Caruana Galizia broke the Panama Papers scandal in Malta, it is a disgrace that we should still be chasing the players that enabled public servants to build structures designed to defraud the Maltese public. What is more disgraceful is that while Malta is facing unprecedented pressure on its failure to meet its anti-money laundering standards, Malta’s Mossack Fonseca is allowed to operate in a parallel universe where the December 2019 protests never happened and where the law continues not to apply to them.

Nexia BT is linked to the alleged corruption Daphne Carauna Galizia was killed to stop her from exposing.

The damage this firm has caused to Malta cannot be scrubbed off from our collective consciousness. The problem is not just about ethics – it is about breaches of the law that have had real implications for our economy, our international image, public morale and trust.

Robert Abela promised a break from Muscat’s regime, when Nexia BT continued to receive lucrative government direct orders even years after Panama Papers broke. They had been involved in Keith Schembri’s business empire, the same Schembri who today is under investigation. In Muscat’s administration, Nexia was linked to a number of shady deals.

Bewilderingly, news of Cini’s alleged perjury was buried in the Egrant inquiry, which Muscat and his cabinet acolytes sat on until it was published by the Leader of the Opposition.

Yet, they continue to receive public money to this day. A leadership change was not a reset button on Malta’s reputation and it definitely did not reset corruption. The problems that were bred by Muscat have evidently permeated through the protests.

Rather than combat them, Abela is only letting them fester. The recent news of a new license for Nexia BT is a confirmation that Malta’s most important bodybuilder isn’t strong enough to run his government without Joseph Muscat.

In a time of economic turmoil and an impending recession on a historic scale, it is worth remembering that the Panama gang, with Joseph Muscat enabling them, are linked to alleged kickbacks.

Back then, with the radiant feel-good factor of a strong economy, this didn’t seem to ruffle many feathers.

The situation has changed now. When families are concerned about making ends meet and small businesses are struggling to survive, €5,000 a day, now more than ever, doesn’t seem so insignificant anymore.

A precarious economic situation will only be exacerbated if we do not get our house in order on AML. And while this alternate reality of lawlessness and impunity continues to exist for Nexia, I struggle to see how Malta can claim to be making progress on AML.

The weakness with which Robert Abela is running the country continues to send the message that we might as well be living under the previous regime. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, as we adjust to a new normal, this administration needs to remember that we will never re-adjust to a way of life when the corrupt were above the law.

David Casa is Member and Quaestor of the European Parliament