Prime Minister Robert Abela on Tuesday refused to say whether Malta would seize superyachts belonging to Russian oligarchs if they had to enter Maltese ports.

Abela was asked by The Malta Independent whether it would follow the examples of countries such as Italy and France in seizing the multi-million yachts owned by Russian oligarchs, in view of Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine.

The Prime Minister however refused to directly answer the question, simply saying that Malta, like other EU countries, has applied the sanctions against Russia which were agreed upon at a European level in response to the war.

Pushed on whether he would give a guarantee one way or the other on the superyacht matter, Abela simply replied: “Malta is applying the agreed sanctions in full.”

Malta was the temporary berth place for the superyacht of Russian Maxim Shubarev, who is also a Maltese citizen through the IIP scheme, last week, while the Associated Press reported how the superyacht belonging to sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov was registered to a holding company in Malta.

Responding to another question on whether Malta’s golden passport scheme is tenable, particularly as MEPs get ready to vote on whether to ban them in favour of a new residency programme, Abela said that the government’s position on the IIP has been clear for a while and that it has always been consistent.

He said that the programme has been strengthened significantly so to have a robust due diligence process, and reminded that the funds derived from it through the National Social Development Fund (NSDF) had resulted in important projects being carried out.

That was why, he said, Malta continues to defend the programme and he added that the country is engaged in a dialogue process with the European Commission on it.

He said that decisions, where necessary, will be taken, pointing towards last week’s decision – which came after a lot of local and international pressure – to suspend applications from people from Russia and Belarus as an example.