Speaker of the House of Representatives of Malta Anġlu Farrugia addressed key global security challenges with particular emphasis on hybrid threats during his participation at the Parliamentary Security-Intelligence Forum held in Washington, D.C. from 9 to 10 December 2025.
The Forum brought together parliamentarians, security officials, and policy leaders from around the world to discuss migration, illicit finance, and emerging technologies.
In his address on migration, Speaker Farrugia stressed that for Malta, migration is "a tangible, daily experience" shaped by its location in the Central Mediterranean. He emphasised that irregular migration remains one of the most pressing humanitarian and security issues for Europe and North Africa.
He further underlined that weaponised migration is increasingly used as a form of hybrid pressure, where vulnerable people are instrumentalised for political coercion, whilst noting that such practices threaten the stability of democratic societies and constitute a moral and strategic test for the international community, insisting that the exploitation of migrants must never become normalised. He added that legal and orderly migration pathways-paired with effective integration measures-bring clear socio-economic benefits, as reflected in Malta's diverse workforce.
In his intervention on illicit finance, Speaker Farrugia described financial crime as a threat that "corrodes institutions and weakens democracies." He highlighted Malta's reforms to strengthen transparency and accountability across the financial sector.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives stressed that human trafficking has become one of the financial lifelines of terrorism, generating illicit revenue through forced labour, sexual exploitation, ransom payments, and migrant smuggling. These profits, he explained, are reinvested into arms, propaganda, and violent operations, creating a self-reinforcing cycle in which conflict fuels trafficking and trafficking fuels conflict. He called for stronger intelligence-sharing, harmonised legal frameworks, and a victim-centred approach that treats trafficked persons as survivors deserving justice.
Addressing emerging technologies, Speaker Farrugia recalled Malta's pioneering role since 2018 in establishing comprehensive legal frameworks for digital innovation, reaffirming Malta's commitment to responsible development aligned with European standards such as MiCA. Speaker Farrugia noted that cryptocurrencies also present risks, including money laundering, sanctions evasion, ransomware activity, and the financing of terrorism, and underlined the need for innovation to advance alongside integrity and oversight. He also drew attention to security concerns linked to rapid technological change, including deepfakes, disinformation tools, and the potential for quantum computing to weaken global encryption systems. He called for coordinated efforts to strengthen technological governance and ensure that human dignity remains at the centre of all regulatory frameworks.
Throughout the Forum, Speaker Farrugia reaffirmed Malta's readiness to cooperate with international partners in strengthening global security, financial stability, and technological resilience.
He concluded that cutting off the "economic and ideological oxygen" sustaining terrorism, and confronting hybrid threats such as weaponised migration, are essential to safeguarding peace, democracy, and human dignity.