Update 2022: After just a year, Malta was removed from the FATF grey list. The reputational damage won’t be that easy to reverse however.
On June 25 2021, Malta was placed on the FATF’s list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, better known as the ‘grey list’. It is the first time that an EU Member State has been placed on this list due to increased and persistent money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
Let’s take a look at what the FATF itself has to say about Malta’s current state, and why they have put the island in the grey list:
In June 2021, Malta made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and MONEYVAL to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime. Since the adoption of its MER in July 2019, Malta has made progress on a number of the MER’s recommended actions to improve its system, such as: strengthening the risk-based approach to FI and DNFBP supervision; improving the analytical process for financial intelligence; resourcing the police and empowering prosecutors to investigate and charge complex money laundering in line with Malta’s risk profile; introducing a national confiscation policy as well as passing a non-conviction based confiscation law; raising sanctions available for the crime of TF and capability to investigate cross-border cash movements for potential TF activity; and increasing outreach and immediate communication to reporting entities on targeted financial sanctions and improving the TF risk understanding of the NPO sector.
Malta will work to implement its FATF action plan by (1) continuing to demonstrate that beneficial ownership information is accurate and that, where appropriate, effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions, commensurate with the ML/TF risks, are applied to legal persons if information provided is found to be inaccurate; and ensuring that effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions are applied to gatekeepers when they do not comply with their obligations to obtain accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information; (2) enhancing the use of the FIU’s financial intelligence to support authorities pursuing criminal tax and related money laundering cases, including by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the Commissioner for Revenue and the FIU; and (3) increasing the focus of the FIU’s analysis on these types of offences, to produce intelligence that helps Maltese law enforcement detect and investigate cases in line with Malta’s identified ML risks related to tax evasion.
The FATF website also states that
“Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to resolve swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes and is subject to increased monitoring. This list is often externally referred to as the “grey list”.
So now we know what the facts are. Malta was placed under examination from Moneyval and the nation passed the test, but FATF determined that there are still important problems to address, and Malta now has the opportunity to continue demonstrating that it is taking a hard stance against money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT).
Here’s some info on what the FATF expects to see in this regard.
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) president Marcus Pleyer said that a stronger anti-money laundering framework will strengthen Malta’s rule of law and the integrity of its financial system.
“Maltese authorities must not downplay the importance of these measures. Every country that moves on the grey list is not very happy but in the end, the government of Malta gave its clear political commitment to work together with FATF to address all the deficiencies and this is just a signal for cooperation and I am very thankful for this commitment.”
This he said, will benefit the country in the long term, because strong anti-money laundering systems lead to stronger rule of law, social cohesion, social peace, “and sustainable and fair economic growth.”
Here are some of my thoughts on the subject, as always, trying to be objective and honest.
Malta’s reputation will suffer
While the FATF’s statement implied that Malta is fully collaborating to up its game, the immediate reaction by Maltese government officials told a different story. In a statement issued soon after the greylisting announcement, the Labour government said “Malta firmly believes that it does not deserve to be subject to increased monitoring considering the plethora of reforms implemented that led to tangible progress in Malta’s ability to prevent, detect and combat money laundering and the funding of terrorism effectively.”
Needless to say, I consider such statements to be pure political speech that is ultimately meaningless. Malta’s reputation has been and will continue to be damaged, and a big part of the blame lies with the current government. Over the past 5 years, the island has been rocked by constant corruption scandals, not to mention the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist who dedicated her life to expose corruption in Malta, in 2017.
Other countries that compete for Malta’s business will have a field day. For example, Guernsey’s press was quick to report this new development, obviously painting it in a very grim light.
Countries like Germany will also be banking on the hope that this reputational damage to Malta will halt the exodus of companies and high net worth individuals from Germany to countries with a friendlier tax code like Malta.
Malta’s reputation as a tax paradise is not something new, and this will just make it worse. I’ve personally been refused banking services in other countries based purely on the fact that I have Maltese citizenship. That is, of course, ridiculous and shameful, but it’s just an example of the bad image that Malta had already been cultivating during the previous years.
Even if Malta gets removed from the grey list quickly (within a year seems to be the most optimistic expectation), the reputational damage will take much longer to undo. In fact, I think that Malta would need to go above and beyond and become a champion of transparency, good governance and well-functioning administrative systems to eventually find its way back into being regarded positively by the public at large.
Increased banking issues
The major banks in Malta have been absolutely horrible at servicing businesses over the past few years, and things will get worse from now on, as foreign banks will look suspiciously at movements to and from Maltese banks. As an example, the oldest and largest bank in Malta, Bank of Valletta, has been struggling to find a correspondent bank to service their clients’ needs to receive and send USD.
They had to resort to using Western Union, and most people and businesses that have had to use USD from within their BoV accounts have been getting nasty surprises as transfers commonly got stuck for weeks.
Getting knowledgeable responses from the bank’s customer care services has not been easy either, meaning lots of time wasted in trying to figure out what happened with a simple transfer. All this leads to frustration and lack of trust in the banking system and the country overall, especially in the case of foreign businesses that are operating in Malta.
Ultimately, increased regulatory pressure on banks will force them to increase AML and KYC checks to ridiculous levels. This means that they have much more work to do, and smaller clients like individuals and SMEs become unprofitable. Banks are then incentivized to actually stop providing them with banking services. This situation is real, as many can already attest. Opening a bank account in Malta is actually unthinkable for most businesses moving to Malta. It’s downright impossible even if it’s a traditional business, let alone a business that operates in “risky” niches like crypto and online gaming. Gone are dreams of Malta being a “blockchain island”, as the government famously proclaimed a few years back.
Failure of the EU as an institution
While the FATF decided to publicly shame Malta this time, it doesn’t mean that the rest of European nations are squeaky clean. Another FATF publication in fact highlights several other European countries that have problematic areas.
What this means is that the EU has failed as an institution to control its member nations and make sure that they all play to internationally recognized rules and regulations.
It’s easy to blame Malta as being a corrupt country with lax law enforcement, but it is well known that many other countries have important issues to deal with as well. Perhaps, Malta just proved to be an easy target to pick on this time around.
I expect the EU to get its act together and for all European countries to stop blaming each other, recognize that they each have unique needs and limitations, and work together to help each other. EU critics will undoubtedly see such news as one more proof that the EU does not work. I personally think that the EU is a net positive for its member countries, but there definitely is some work to be done to make it better than it currently is.
This is a wake-up call
I left Malta several years ago, and the state of rampant corruption was one of the reasons. Unfortunately, most Maltese people have been living in a state of denial for many years. Even when they acknowledged the sorry state of things, they felt helpless and resigned to the idea that this is how things work in Malta, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Hopefully, the fact that Malta is joining the likes of countries like Haiti, South Sudan, Uganda, Albania, Panama, Syria etc. in occupying a place on the FATF’s grey list will serve as a wake-up call for every resident of the nation to change their way of doing things and demand much more from their politicians and law enforcement agencies.
Unfortunately, the past 10-20 years have been characterized by extreme levels of greed which have scarred Malta in many ways and attracted many unsavory characters and shady businesses to Malta. This greed has of course not been contained in the financial sector. It has meant a property boom with little regard to aesthetics or preservation of the precious little that there was of nature. Traffic and the resultant pollution have increased exponentially. Malta has become very dependent on certain business sectors like online gaming and finance, and such news threatens to blow everything up and plunge the island into a deep crisis.
Every Maltese person knows how things work on the islands. Whenever I visit, invariably the topics of conversation steer over to what this or that person did in a shady manner, or how corrupt a certain sector or person is etc. It is pretty depressing to be honest, as people are so frustrated that they end up sharing their grief with each other, which replaces quality conversation about more productive topics.
There are whole sectors that pay minimal tax just because it has long been accepted that the people providing services in these sectors work in the black economy. Construction workers are probably the most classic example. You will never get a VAT receipt for any construction work done, and if you even mention it they will look at you like crazy or even try to ridicule you. This extends to plumbers, electricians, etc.
And if you’re thinking that this rampant tax evasion is limited to manual labor, I can provide further examples. Restaurants in Gozo is another classic case. Here’s how it goes. You go and dine at any restaurant in Gozo. At the end of your meal, you get a receipt that clearly states that it is not a fiscal receipt. You pay and that’s the end of it. No VAT receipt gets issued. If you ask, the standard excuse is that the machine is currently broken. I should note that not all restaurants do this anymore, on my latest visit I did manage to collect a few VAT receipts, although it’s probably because I asked to pay by card rather than cash.
Doctors in Malta are another special case of rampant tax evasion. Since they are exempt from giving fiscal (VAT) receipts, the vast majority simply don’t give any receipt at all when you make a visit at a private clinic. It is very common to walk into clinics and pharmacies where doctors attend to patients and see a big notice saying that only cash payments are accepted. This is total BS and is an obvious way of ensuring that the government has no way of knowing how much they are making. Combined with the non-issuance of tax receipts, they get away with declaring a pittance of an income on their yearly tax declaration, pocketing the rest.
I doubt the FATF has any insight into these practices, and I would bet that they will not be touched, but those are some of the real everyday practices that actually need to be addressed in order for the overall culture of tax evasion and corruption to change. Else, people will always be looking at the extreme tax evasion practiced by these sectors and have the incentive to do the same if they can get away with it. Not to mention the feeling of injustice and helplessness felt by all those who are employed and work hard and honestly and receive their paycheck net of taxes, so they have no way of evading tax and pay a hefty 35% of all their income to the government.
While my experience of life in Malta makes me skeptical of long-lasting changes, I remain very hopeful that this greylisting will finally prove to be the necessary push to put Malta on a new and positive course for the future.
What are your thoughts? If you want to share your ideas on what the FATF grey listing means for Malta, go ahead and leave a comment below.
Hi Jean,
Recent developments in Malta, quite fitting into the subject of this blog entry, shed a further light on the corruption issues that is haunting Malta for years by now. Not a week passes by without published articles in the Maltese media, linked to the known suspects.
What is new in all this is, that this time it wasn’t coming from the usual anti-Muscat camp like the civil society movement in Malta with Repubblika at the helm of it, but from former partners of a company residing in Switzerland who ‘flagged’ it to the media in Malta.
At the centre of this story is Joseph Muscat but also Yorgen Fenech to whom that company has been recommended by Keith Schembri. It is all in these two linked articles of the Times of Malta published on 7th November 2021.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/joseph-muscat-wired-thousands-of-euro-by-swiss-firm-linked-to-vgh.913212
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/former-partners-raise-red-flags-on-man-behind-joseph-muscat-payments.913224
According to the content of the articles, Joseph Muscat received €60k in total, split into four transactions starting in March 2020 and ending in June 2020 with the company from where the money came from, declaring bankruptcy shortly afterwards.
The reaction to this by Joseph Muscat came a couple of days later.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/defiant-muscat-sees-two-weights-two-measures.913746
The new findings, or better say revelations by those former ‘contacts’ of Muscat who came forth with the truth, contradicts his statements given in an interview (for which Muscat asked the Times of Malta himself after years of rejecting any interview with that paper while still PM) in which he said that he didn’t work for any company abroad. With this new revelation, he’s been proved to have been ‘hiding’ the truth (to put it politely).
After all those years of scandals, one is used to the way Joseph Muscat deflects and distracts from facts that go to his disadvantage. Up to this point it worked for him for good or worse, but now it seems that even his successor as PM, Mr Abela might rather be on the way to drop him for the sake of party reasoning in regards of the next GE in Malta in June 2022.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/watch-ex-pms-still-have-responsibilities-robert-abela-says-on-muscat.913737
Although Mr Abela does not answer the questions put to him by the Times reporter in a direct way, the way he expressed his opinion in a very good diplomatic way gives at least some hints to interpret how he might look at these new revelations. This in the light of his own term as PM and the chances of winning the next GE which are by lead around the 40k voters mark in compare to the PN.
It has given me the impression that in order to win the next GE, Joseph Muscat is already finished in regards of his political career. It is just not yet the right time to come forth with it for there is still a certain number of people within the PL who would forgive Joseph Muscat everything. But this is not enough anymore because the electorate is grown a bit more critical to matters like this and especially among the younger generations.
This goes for both parties, PL and PN.
https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/data_and_surveys/113193/breaking_free_only_45_of_youths_set_to_vote_pn_and_pl
There is some other website which has any corruption matter as subject of their articles. In one of these published today, are some aspects which also take into account how matters like this one have been handled within the EU when something like this ‘revolving door’ matter happened in other member states.
https://theshiftnews.com/2021/11/12/consulting-fees-or-deferred-bribes/
I quote:
‘Such revolving door appointments happen surprisingly often in EU institutions. Mario Draghi is a good example. He was Director General of the Italian Treasury, left to join Goldman Sachs, and left there to become Governor of the Bank of Italy, spinning the revolving door so fast he should have been a wind turbine.
Some institutions guard against this, either through vaguely-enforced “codes of conduct” (the European Parliament), or actual laws requiring a three year wait between leaving government and taking a private sector job (as in France).
It should come as no surprise that Malta’s standards are deliberately vague.’
There is no need to explain who Mario Draghi is and which capacity he currently serves his own country.
An institution like the EU who picks on the small countries when there is something going wrong, should lead by good example in the first place, otherwise it makes the measures and standards taken against a certain member state that fails to abide by the rules, either a mockery of the standards or a farce of the whole procedure.
The corruption scandals that have engulfed Malta for years have led to some ‘corruptomania’ and is just adding up to the Covid-19 pandemic which Malta has, so far, managed rather well in a European comparison.
On days like these, one thinks that the whole society in Malta is crumbling by the revelations of corruption and scrolling down to the comments on this linked The Shift News article, some commentator(s) would rather like to see a complete downfall of Malta just in order to have the PL out of government. This is going far beyond any reasoning and extremist in expression as well as in the light of the aim.
When Robert Abela took over from Joseph Muscat as leader of the PL and PM after winning the contest for PL leadership against Chris Fearne, it was all talk of ‘continuity’ by Abela. Mr Fearne would rather had broken radically with the era of Joseph Muscat but that was considered as going too far for fear of alienating PL voters and members. Now that Mr Abela is PM for almost two years, he’s started to step out of the shadow of his predecessor in order to win the next GE on his own and I think that there is something to follow in this regard because Joseph Muscat has by now become a burden for the PL and it gets heavier the more scandals of his making or that of his close friends come to light.
But the PN, weak as she is for her present leader Mr Bernard Grech has decided to fall back on ultra-conservative stanzas in regards of women rights in the abortion debate, adding up to the incessant allegations towards him being a persisting tax evader himself.
Because the PN is not to win the next GE and the other small parties always standing small chances to win either more seats of even a single one, the PL has still the best chances to win the next GE, it is just a question of the margin of votes she can get. There is roughly a half year to go to that next GE and much can happen until then.
So far, the members of Robert Abela’s cabinet are not involved in all this corruption revelations and Mr Abela himself is showing that such things are no longer tolerated under his own watch. The greylisting of Malta by the FATF has been received by the Maltese government in way that it acts accordingly and this is probably the core problem Malta has to tackle as being the legacy of the Joseph Muscat era.
It looks rather that Malta will manage to get out of this grey list in due time for the present government is working on it.
Kind regards,
Thomas
Hi Jean,
As there is never a dull moment in politics in Malta, there is something which reflects on the two big parties in Malta in regards of the result of recent decisions on an international level, just that this time, it is a pure domestic matter. But those who have an eye on Malta (FATF, EU etc.) are certainly to notice this, unless the PN MEPs are not saying anything about it, but I guess that these institutions are probably reading the Times of Malta anyway these days.
‘PL and PN both defend cash donations to parties
Donations received in line with party financing regulations, they say’
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/pl-and-pn-both-defend-cash-donations-to-parties.892687
I am just goint to quote some extracts from this article:
‘In an interview with Times of Malta on Sunday, outgoing developers’ lobby chief Sandro Chetcuti said political parties continue to regularly pester businesspeople for donations.
“Many people think we are constantly trying to compromise politicians with donations; the reality is that most of us don’t need the help of politicians to do well in our business,” Chetcuti said.
On the contrary, he says it is the politicians who chase the business community for financial handouts.
“Sometimes, it feels like harassment. Some business-people get embarrassed by their persistence,” he said.’
That seems to be some part of the reality the PL and the PN both are rather keen to keep hidden for their own reasonings.
From the response of the PL to this matter:
‘The PL did not reply to questions if its members pestered business leaders for financial help and what reforms ought to be introduced.’
The PN isn’t quite shorter in their statement:
‘Meanwhile, the PN spokesman said parties required donations to survive.
“It must be underlined that, in a country without state funding for political parties, we have no choice but to fund operations through donations,” he said.’
And:
‘However, the PN, he said, also accepts donations from the business community against receipts and in line with the party financing regulations.
“MPs, candidates and officials have their own ways of calling for fund-raising contributions, including direct soliciting,” the spokesman said.’
I think that what is mentioned in the quotations from this above linked article is just the real display of the hypocrisy which always have been part in politics, not just in Malta. As a result of that one can say that there is no such thing like the ‘moral high ground’ and they both, PL and PN, are really not much different to each one another when it comes to matters like this.
One might even say that in the end of the day, they are also both having their fair share in regards of the negative reputation Malta has received in recent years with the result of greylisting and the new decision by Moody’s on Malta’s ranking position, recently published also in the Times of Malta.
What the PL in government does in domestic affairs, the PN is dragging it onto the international stage in order to score a point against the PL. In the end of the day, the thrid part that suffers is just Malta as a country.
When reading through the comments on this above linked article, one can see that in some odd way, the PL and PN commentators who are always on a daily basis giving nothing positive to each one another, appear to be oddly ‘united’ in condemning both parties. Well, this won’t last long anyway.
In light of recent developments and with the climate change being already on a stage where ignoring of certain worsening conditions is no longer possible, both parties are utterly failing in addressing these challenges of today and the near future. That is because they are both running in circles and this might be fatalistic in about ten years when people might start to feel the summer heat in Malta as being unbearable even for those natives who have always been accustomed to a heat that lasts from mid June to the end of September.
I think that it’ll be rather the Green Parties who have the means to address the problems of the climate change and the problems overdevelopment in the building sector contributes to this as well in regards of the effects these create at the present and in future.
Kind regards,
Thomas
Hi Jean,
That’s another interesting blog entry of yours which I have read with interest. I have been following the FATF decision to grey list Malta through the Maltese media and there is nothing in Malta that goes without any controversial discussions, respectively media reports.
The whole matter is a complex one and in my opinion a political decision where the FATF has bowed to some political pressure from the EU but also the USA, UK and Germany, as those three have been mentioned in particular in the Maltese media as the main influencing countries on the grey listing of Malta.
I noticed from your article that in your view, like this is shared by the Maltese media and some others who commented on articles related to this grey listing decision, that you are also having the focus for this decision as being in the responsibility of the present PL government of Malta.
Without taking any side in this matter, one has to acknowledge the way the Maltese MEPs are acting in regards of international matters that concern Malta. The two PN MEPs who are also members of the EPP and therefore of that EP group have their own agenda. On the other hand, there are the PL MEPs who are members of the S&D group and naturally have a different opinion on such matters. In my perception, the PN is the negative part who tries to downgrade Malta by pointing to her government, the PL is the positive by pointing out the improvements made.
I wouldn’t doubt the many things you have told in your article which are based on your own experiences as a Maltese while living in Malta and abroad since you left. Two perspectives that gives a variety of angles to look at matters. What comes short in all this is that the way the PN has been acting in Malta and on the international level, like in the EP or the EU as a whole. This was and still is to take every effort to discredit the Maltese government in order to bring it down and gain from the negative publicity for their own ends which means to increase their chances to win the next general election in Malta. But it is backfiring on themselves back home.
I am of the opinion that ‘dirty clothes’ have to be washed at home and not hang it out in public so that everybody can see it. I am also of the opinion that Malta can solve her domestic problems herself as far as the government and its administration is capable and willing to do it. But this demands that this never ending negative competition between the two big parties PN and PL moves towards a different level where the national interest of Malta also in context of her international reputation becomes centre stage. Both parties are that entrenched in their old traditional ways to rather do the point scoring at the expense of the other than to work together for the better of the whole country. Vanity fair of all the leading politicians of both parties are the reason for either very slow progress or none at all.
What Joseph Muscat did while he was PM of Malta had one main reason which is very often overlooked and which was of no interest for DGC, unless she could pick something that worked against the PL. Some people have a short memory and more so when their focus is merely on their own country and they don’t look at developments abroad.
I just like to mention the financial crisis of Greece which led to the Euro crisis and Greece ended up with regulations and pressure imposed on the changing Greek governments by the EU, the IMF and EU member states who were mainly bailing out Greece in that process, namely Germany, the Netherlands and some others with the European Commission and its president playing a central role in all this too.
When this Euro crisis unfolded and became worse because Greece was facing state bankruptcy, the Greece has been treated like ‘a crook’. Germany has even sent civil servants from her own financial administration to ‘advise’ the Greeks how to manage revenue increase and get hold of the tax evaders. This didn’t go down well with the Greeks at all and old memories from the years of German occupation during WWII came up once again. The changing governments, even the far-left ones with Tsipras as PM, had no other choice than to budge to the demands of the above mentioned institutions and big EU member states. This was humiliating to the Greeks but it also showed that being a member state of a common market and currency, an essential part of sovereignty has been given away for the having the Euro.
In the early years of this Greek Euro crisis, Joseph Muscat was still leader of the PL then in opposition with Malta having a PN government. He was following these Greek developments very close and attentive also paying attention to the way the EU, IMF and the EU-Commission were treating Greece. He had one aim as a result of that as he never wanted to have Malta suffering the same fate like Greece and this was in my opinion a main driving force behind his policies when he became PM of Malta in 2013. This was also the way he run his government. The aim was to have Malta financially that much secured by investment and big business so that (even or more) with a low tax rate, revenues for Malta would secure the country a financial backing which would and should prevent Malta from going on the Greek path. The IIP scheme contributed very much to this financial cushion and much of what the Maltese government was able to spent in this still ongoing pandemic, comes from there.
My view on the EU has always been somewhere between criticizing it and advocating reforms towards a more direct democracy and the EU being more an institution that works for the people within the EU member states and not just one-sided for the big lobbies which always surround politicians and parliaments. The smaller member states of the EU always have the disadvantage that they have either a small lobby or rather none at all. Greece is for example not one of the smallest member states but doesn’t count among the big ones either.
In times of crisis, such as it was with Greece and as it is now with Malta and Cyprus which has a similar IIP scheme to increase their revenue by selling passports to non-EU citizens who invest into the country and in return get citizenship and thus an EU passport, it always comes to the fore how little or less the EU knows about the member states concerned. I mean by that what they really know about the history, culture and on top of all the mentality of the people of that country. It is always the same that such aspects either play a little role in the big decisions by the EU or it is simply the way that the EU imposes her will on the member state and the smaller the member state the easier it is to impose regulations and demands on such a member state when in crisis. This happened with Greece, this happens with Cyprus and this also happens with Malta just that Malta gets the most of the EU bashing these days than Cyprus in compare.
It is this way of negative treatment of smaller member states who have no natural resources and are depending on trade and investment from abroad which are the most vulnerable in compare to the big ones. That means in order to have Malta not being like those ‘receiving’ countries but rather ‘contributing’ ones, the Maltese government had to look for new ways to increase revenue. That the measures chosen didn’t just attract the serious businesses to Malta goes without saying because tax heavens are not that new in the EU for Luxembourg has been such a country even when Jean-Claude Juncker has been PM of that country before he became President of the EU Commission. At that time, Germany was also criticizing their practices in regards of low taxes and it was the same with Switzerland and also Liechtenstein.
Wherever there was a place of low taxes that provided the best terms and conditions for companies to save taxes and thrive with their profits, they went there and that always caused some envy and critics by those big countries who faced a ‘migration’ of large investment into these other countries or they simply moved the HQ of the company to that country but still operating in another one.
Another example is the Republic of Ireland and their low taxes on big businesses. Same story, the EU and some member states in particular were always envy in that country and put pressure on Ireland in order to alter their tax schemes. But the Irish government didn’t budge to such demands from the EU. Now, since the UK has left the EU and some parts of the international operating financial sector have moved out from the UK and settled in the Republic of Ireland, this member state benefits a lot from Brexit and I have foreseen this and you know what, I don’t begrudge the Irish their advantage because the Brits have brought all this onto themselves by their own decision to leave the EU.
The way the PN MEPs have brought up all the negatives from Malta onto an international level and still continue to maintain the negative image of Malta even with the focus on the PL government has much contributed to the negative decisions taken by the EU, the ‘Big Three’ and the USA. Because when a country is talked down by representatives of its own, others who have neither any sympathy or positive inclination towards Malta take the negative aspects up with pleasure in order to taken their own advantages out of it for themselves.
The so high praised freelance investigative journalist also had her own dark side which can be viewed on her very own blog entries which are still available to read. I have read through some passages of her entries and also other articles in the Maltese and international media about her. I have a much more different opinion about her work and herself as a public figure than the many who still worship her. Joseph Muscat certainly had many good intentions and some of these worked rather well for Malta but everything comes with a disadvantage for everything has its two sides. He was in some ways too liberal and his taste for a lavish life style brought him to where he ended.
In my opinion, Malta didn’t deserve to be singled out as the ‘worst member state’ of the EU because as you also mentioned, there are plenty of other member states with similar or other problems in regards of the EU’s moral high ground which is in my view just mere propaganda. That is because the EU also talks in one way and acts in quite another, also often contradicting herself.
Sure, there will be difficult times for Malta ahead because those who wanted to have it did their very best to get it. What I would wish for Malta is that it will overcome this tedious and outdated polarisation in politics and that even with partisan competition the wellbeing of the people and the country is what all should be working for. That is the ideal, such as you have mentioned your ideal of the EU, which in some ways I share, but the EU is a bureaucratic institution which doesn’t really has the interests of the people at heart but their own ones.
As long as the PN is continuing with their negative way of describing and depicting Malta, as long the PN won’t win a general election back home because the people who live in Malta, either way have to choose between the income that guarantees them making ends meet or the moral high ground where hardships come along with. The PL guarantees them the continuity of this status quo and also tries to sustain it, against the odds imposed on it from the EU, FATF and others from abroad. Therefore, there won’t be a change in favour of the PN for the next couple of years to come.
You have been to various countries since you left Malta and you have a variety of other aspects to compare Malta with. But I am not sure whether the negative aspects of those countries deemed to be better in some ways are just put aside in order to maintain the negative image of Malta, which is more or less and like it or not, in general terms not so much different to others. Just that those aspects which you have mentioned yourself in particular are a result of the negative propaganda by others and you have experienced this yourself, just like others had to as well.
Is it worth to follow the PN as much as to follow the PL? The losers are always the Maltese in one way or another except for those of them who found their ways to the top and have nothing to worry about, but they are the few, not the many. I am more for the average Maltese and their worries. Less for those at the top who benefit from all the negative aspects more than any other and don’t care about what Malta has become by now and how it will look like in the near future with a rather bleak prospect in regards of the continuing building craze.
I think that the present Maltese government knows already that this can’t go on the way it used to be because in some short time, there won’t be anything left of the country side if it goes on as it still is. It is certainly time for change, but that change has to come from the Maltese themselves, not imposed from the outside because once the Maltese realise where they stand and that it is time to change course, they do it themselves for they realised that it is necessary.
Kind regards,
Thomas
Thanks for your detailed comment Thomas, I appreciate your additional views on the subject. I think all the points you raised are valid, and I would agree that the change has to come from the population in general and not from a political party. This is of course a very difficult task, and I have my doubts whether it will ever happen, from what I see the point of no return has already been reached and surpassed, but hopefully I’m wrong on that.
Due to the size of Malta and the way that everyone is more or less related or “knows someone”, corruption and favors have always existed under any government, and I don’t think this will ever be eradicated. I do think, however, that in recent years under the Labour party things have really escalated on this front.
In general, I’m very skeptical of the political scene in any country, though, and I tend to look more at the general behavior of the population and the prevailing attitudes when making up my mind about the prospects of that country. My view is that in the past 25 years Malta as a nation has tasted success, especially after joining the EU, and got carried away with things, with greed and as a consequence corruption taking over. The result is a non-sustainable situation in various areas, especially the more visible ones like the destruction of the environment due to the construction bonanza.
Agreed.