Labour Party MP Alex Muscat has defended the Malta Film Commission's spending, saying such costs are justified as long as they deliver tangible economic returns.
Muscat argued that investment in the film industry should be judged on the value it generates for Malta rather than on raw expenditure figures alone.
In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Muscat was asked whether he was concerned that, over the course of 2025, Malta Film Commissioner Johann Grech and his delegations spent €137,536 on overseas travel for just 10 business trips. Parliament was informed recently that from this total, €93,083 was spent on flights, €34,481 on accommodation, and €9,972 listed under per diem.
In 2024, a total of €29,665 was spent on flights, €19,470 on accommodation and €6,567 was listed as per diem, and this was over a total of eight trips.
Muscat stated that under Grech, the Maltese film industry has generated around €1 billion to the Maltese economy and has grown to offer daily jobs to people within this industry, instead of occasional, more infrequent gigs.
"If you are spending money - rather, investing it because you are getting jobs in return - I'll give my blessing for you to spend every euro [jien inbierek kull ewro]," Muscat said. "If one is repeatedly spending more but is, in reality, unsuccessful and not getting films done here, then we'll have a problem."
Muscat said he'd be concerned on these spending habits if Malta does not get its value for money, after factoring in returns on total investment. He added that the film industry is one that, by nature, requires serious investment in order to reach high levels.
Muscat, as one of the government's representatives on Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), also defended the PAC's decision to stop investigating the Malta Film Commission's unexplained spending of €7.2 million in government funds.
Last October, the Labour Party MPs on the PAC voted to stop chasing information that the committee itself had requested to scrutinise the MFC's spending that was flagged by an NAO report published in November 2024. In spite of a Speaker's ruling allowing them to do so, the government's members - four against the Opposition's three - voted against recalling Commissioner Grech to testify before it for a second time.
The National Audit Office report had said that from the €7.2 million the Film Commission received in funding between 2019 and 2022, only €2.4 million was found to have been spent, leaving €4.8 million unaccounted for as deferred income on the MFC's accounts.
On this, Muscat - who was the most vocal government MP during this particular PAC meeting last October - told this newsroom that "there is a full, detailed account on where all the money went". Muscat said that after calling Grech to testify before the PAC, the committee was satisfied with the responses received after he provided a "clear, full breakdown" of the MFC's expenses.
"There was this impression - and it wasn't a fair impression - that this money vanished or was stolen, and it wasn't the case. We were given an account on how this was spent," Muscat said.
"The Opposition wasn't happy with the result. It wanted to call the commissioner to testify again over things we had already discussed, and we didn't think it was needed," Muscat added.
Muscat said this investigation was "more of a witch hunt" to attack Grech, who has repeatedly found himself under public fire throughout his tenure.
He said that to scrutinise effectively, it's not ideal for the PAC to stick to one subject for too long. He noted that when the PAC was discussing the Electrogas power station, it focused on nothing else but this case for some three years.
"The subject of films was exhausted. Explanations were given, no funds vanished or were left unaccounted for, and we were given explanations on how funds were spent," Muscat said.
Passport scheme
Muscat, who between 2020 and 2022 served as Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities, told this newsroom that no Russian oligarchs received Maltese citizenship before the golden passport scheme was abolished last year.
The PL MP observed that even though Malta was heavily scrutinised for its citizenship-by-investment scheme for potentially opening the door for Russian oligarchs to acquire EU citizenship, none of the 2,500+ individuals and entities on the European Commission's published sanctions list, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, were Maltese. Hence, he denounced claims that Russian oligarchs were fleeing to Maltese shores.
"It says a lot that from the sanctions list published by the European Commission on Russian individuals, many of them Russian oligarchs close to President Putin's circles, none of them were Maltese - none," Muscat said.
He said that this proved testament to the due diligence performed in Maltese citizenship acquisition processes, adding that perhaps "we could have [better] explained the kinds of due diligence we were performing".
Muscat continued that as a result of the due diligence being undertaken for foreigners looking to become Maltese citizens, Russia has recorded one of Malta's highest refusal rates for any single country.
In April 2025, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Malta's golden passport scheme was in violation of EU law, stating that, due to its transactional nature, it amounted to "the commercialisation of the granting of the nationality of a member state and by extension that of union citizenship". This led to Malta shifting away from this transactional method for foreigners to become Maltese in favour of acquiring Maltese citizenship by merit, in line with EU legislation.
Muscat said that the Maltese government was right to keep defending it till the very end. He argued that part of the Republic of Malta's defence was fighting for citizenship to remain an exclusively national competence of EU member states. This means that only EU countries, and not the EU institutions or both, can determine if a person is a citizen of theirs or not - similar to how only the countries themselves can legislate their taxation. Citizenship remained a national competence of the member states, even though Malta lost its cases versus the European Commission.
"Who becomes Maltese and who doesn't should be in our hands, as Maltese, and this was at risk with the case opened against us," Muscat said. "It was dangerous not only for Malta, but for all EU countries."
Muscat stated that Malta did not lose this case on points of law, but on points of principle. On the final sentence, he added that "while I respect it, I disagree with it. The ruling was not based on law, it was based on policy; based on law, Malta won", Muscat said.
Following this ECJ ruling, foreigners can no longer purchase Maltese citizenship - it can only be acquired by merit. On top of those with a genuine link to the Maltese islands, acquiring Maltese citizenship by merit now puts additional focus on providing added value and job creation to the country.
Will contest next election, PL unfazed by opinion polls and PN leader Alex Borg
Muscat declared that he will "undoubtedly" be running in the next general election. When asked whether he is eyeing a return to Cabinet, he admitted that this is every MP's desire and that he is "eager and ready to contribute more".
Muscat was part of Robert Abela's first Cabinet as Prime Minister from January 2020, as the Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities, before being relegated to the backbench after the 2022 general election. He has remained there despite two ministers resigning from Cabinet in the last 15 months and no new ministers being appointed in their absence.
When questioned if his post-election ousting irked him, Muscat chuckled and responded that being a member of Cabinet is every politician's ambition, though this fate is akin to having a football coach choosing which players make the starting 11 and which players must sit on the bench.
"A government parliamentary group is like a football team: you got the 11 players on the pitch and seven substitutes ready to come in when needed," Muscat said. "The coach must decide who the first 11 are. Currently, I'm on the bench, ready to do what I must when the coach calls for me."
On this, he admitted that while "every player wants to be on the pitch", one can still make a difference without an executive role, from the backbenches including within the parliamentary group.
Muscat said that Alex Borg's rise as the latest PN leader has not affected the Labour Party. Moreover, he is neither worried that, according to surveys, the Labour Party's majority has reduced to just around 9,000 votes - a far cry from the 39,000-vote lead it had just last June.
On the contrary, he observed that the government is approaching the end of its third legislature, and with the Maltese electorate historically voting for a change in government every two elections, he is holding his head up high that the government isn't truly experiencing electoral or political fatigue, since opinion polls repeatedly place the Labour Party ahead of the Nationalist Party.
"I will be worried the moment we begin taking the wrong political decisions," he said.
Muscat mentioned that voters tend to favour stability and that while "stability" could single-handedly define Abela's time in office, the same cannot be said for the PN, which has elected Borg as its fourth leader in the past decade.