The election has come and gone, but the slaps in the government’s face continue to arrive, regularly and from different quarters. The Maltese electorate has given the Labour Party a third consecutive mandate, but this has not changed the way the country is perceived outside these shores.

We are still frowned upon and looked at with scepticism. For one thing, we are still on the grey list of the Financial Analysis Task Force. Malta was the first European country to be given such dishonour and we are still to get out of it.

Thankfully, there was also a caress coming our way, which arrived in the form of a letter sent by the European Commission President to Prime Minister Robert Abela. Ursula von der Leyen highlighted government’s “commitment … to strengthen the country’s institutions, the rule of law and good governance”, which she described as “commendable”.

She added that the Commission is ready to offer its support to the government’s actions which “aim to strengthen the rule of law, media freedom and the protection of journalists in Malta”.

But it is evident, even from the von der Leyen letter, which we are publishing today, that much more needs to be done.

The week which has just passed has seen the Maltese government once again being harshly criticised by international organisations for its inability to make the required progress. Government may feed the lie to the blind electorate that things are moving in the right direction, but it is clear that those watching its moves are not impressed, at all.

On Tuesday, the Group of States against Corruption (Greco) published its report on the state of affairs in Malta. Greco is a Council of Europe body that aims to improve its members’ capabilities in tackling corruption by monitoring their compliance with anti-corruption standards. The idea is to assist states to identify shortcomings in anti-corruption policies and prompting necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms.

The Greco report said that only two of the 23 recommendations it had suggested have been fully implemented by the Maltese government.

Yes, just two. Twelve of the others were partly done, while nothing was done on the other nine.

The former Justice Minister is proud of this achievement. We’re not.

Edward Zammit Lewis’ interpretation is that Malta managed to do more than half of the tasks it has been assigned. That’s a very deceitful way of looking at things. “Partly done” does not mean that the mission has been accomplished; it means that there is (much) more that needs to be done to finish the job.

Of course, the Gahans in this country believed Zammit Lewis. We did not. Two out of 23 means a score of less than 10%, so we cannot be happy about that.

On Wednesday, then, we had the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) lambasting the government for its “half-hearted” attempt to reform the rule of law.

The committee members were addressing Maltese journalists at the end of a three-day visit to Malta to assess the situation. Like Greco, they were not pleased with the outcome.

They highlighted the “excruciatingly slow” justice system, making particular reference to the proceedings related to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Nearly five years have passed since she was brutally murdered and we are still nowhere near a conclusion.

For the nth time, they also called upon government to scrap the sale of passports scheme. It should have been done years ago, but more so now that the war in Ukraine is raging on, they said.

Both Greco and LIBE did not mince their words. They made it clear that they expect the government to work faster and implement more reforms. Until that will happen, they will continue to keep a watchful eye on what takes place in this country.

It’s not a good feeling. For the past decade, Malta has had to face several humiliations on the international stage. And they are set to keep on coming unless matters improve, drastically and quickly.

Prime Minister Abela, in his meeting with LIBE, said that his government will not put the rule of law on the backburner. He spoke about the biggest reform being the “change of attitude and culture”. Well, what Zammit Lewis said is not really helpful to believe that what the Prime Minister said is correct.

Then again, it would have been good to hear what Abela has to say about the Greco report and what the LIBE committee said at the end of their visit. This past week, the Prime Minister visited two companies, but the media were not invited and we only came to know about them when the Department of Information sent a statement. We were not given the chance to ask any questions.

Clearly, what the government boasts it has done is not enough.

One worrying comment was made by Italian MEP Franco Roberti, who said that his impression is that the Maltese government took action only because of the pressure exerted upon it by international bodies.

In other words, what he was saying is that the Maltese government is not doing anything out of conviction.