The Government will continue with its work, as it did prior to the Moneyval result, so that it can get off the Financial Advisory Task Force (FATF)’s greylist as soon as possible, Prime Minister Robert Abela said in an interview on party media on Sunday.

The unwelcome news of Malta’s greylisting by the FATF on Wednesday stirred a lot of doubts as to what Malta should expect in the coming weeks and months, especially economically. The Institute for Financial Services Practitioners told The Malta Independent on Sunday that the country should work together and seek to get off the grey list as soon as possible.

The Prime Minister echoed these words, saying that the country is working to prove that the changes which Malta, as shown by the positive Moneyval report, has implemented are working in practice, he said.

“Malta faced one of the worst challenges with the Covid-19 pandemic… however, we are more determined to tackle this issue,” he said. “I wanted to be honest with people; I addressed the people of this country and the media at once.”

The Prime Minister remarked that at the end of 2019, Malta had 58 points to address from the Moneyval report. “It seemed impossible to implement them because there were so many things to do. From those, we managed to implement almost all of them, and only 3 need a certain degree of work to address,” he said.

He said that this means that the Moneyval report gave us “a certificate of excellence”.

On the other hand, the FATF highlighted three main issues that the country needs to work on in order to be considered for removal from the grey list; collaboration on fighting tax crimes, more transparency on beneficial ownerships of companies, and enhancing the use of financial intelligence in the fight against money laundering..

The Prime Minister remarked that the three points highlighted by the FATF need to be dealt with; “we need to work seriously and professionally to show that these are effective.”

He also said that this situation “should be looked at in a positive way”, as the Moneyval report means that the country has a certificate proving Malta’s seriousness in tackling these issues, and the FATF whitelisting the country would further confirm it.

“We know that the action plan speaks about anti-money laundering, and not about legitimate businesses. Can this be a government that breaks businesses when it was supporting them during pandemic?” he said.

“We need to strengthen our jurisdiction. Once we have the seal of approval by the FATF, just imagine how much more attractive we will become. I believe this will be an advantage,” he said.

Meetings abroad

This week, the Prime Minister also had a number of meetings abroad, where he discussed Libya and migration, amongst other things, together with other European leads in the European Council as well as the United Nations General Secretary, António Guterres.

He said that during the meetings, he stated that there needs to be a coordinated approach to the migration situation and that it is not right that countries which are closest to Libya are forced to carry a disproportionate burden, especially due to their size.

“I was happy because the UN secretary saw the issue like we are seeing it”, Abela said.

The Prime Minister said that more work has to be done on the Libyan borders, and that Libya is seeing it in the same manner. “Both the EU and the UN need to have a strong presence to address the situation in Libya […] especially at the country’s southern borders.”

He also remarked that Libya should be seen also as a “reliable business partner”.

Covid-19

Asked about how he currently views the situation regarding the pandemic, the Prime Minster said that the message he would like to give out is of “cautiousness but with a lot of optimism.”

He said that although the country has a very strong vaccination rate, it should remain cautious as measures are relaxed.

“You have countries which were too ambitious and have ended up having to increase some measures. We are taking a bidirectional approach: things can go backwards in terms of measures, but that is why we want to be cautious and always open up gradually, so we avoid having to go backwards,” he remarked.

Come September and October, the Prime Minister said that the government will have identified whether a third dose of the vaccine will be needed.

He also said that the vaccine passport agreement is another step. “The tourist bookings that we had this week after the UK’s green listing were impressive.”

Regarding the recovery plan which needs to be presented before European authorities, he said that Cabinet was discussing it in order to present it soon.

“We will have a recovery plan and this will result in new projects. These projects need to be combined with the long-term ones we have, such as on public and private transport, education, and more employment opportunities,” he said.

“The recovery plan for the country is split in two. One part is the recovery plan which we need to present to the EU, and the other is the plan which the government announced last year. This plan, which is worth €320 million from the EU, will create jobs and is in sync with the local recovery plan.”