Seeing the vice-president of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič touring Delimara with the then (disgraced) energy minister Konrad Mizzi, heaping praise on the Electrogas monument-to-corruption tanker made my blood boil, like it did to many other Maltese of goodwill. That image will be stamped in the hall of infamy in Malta’s ups and downs of 20 years of EU membership.

Yes, that was 2015 but, already then, you could smell the rot in a project which was the likely motive for the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Wasn’t membership of the EU also supposed to mean better oversight over the excesses of our own governments? Shouldn’t the commission serve as the guardian of the treaty which includes the rule of law?

This is the question several people ask me during town hall meetings and when knocking on doors. They feel that the EU is turning a blind eye to bad governance and corruption.

Fighting corruption and mismanagement

In the past few years, the European Commission has recognised that better safeguards are needed to protect both the EU’s and national interests when it comes to the rule of law and the clean use of public money. A series of EU laws were proposed to ensure this. Some examples include the setting up of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) to investigate financial crimes, a directive for more competitive tendering and the more recent anti-SLAPP law (Daphne’s Law) to fight attempts to muzzle the free press.

But while Malta votes in favour of these laws in Brussels, probably for no other reason than not to look bad,  implementation, as Alfred Sant once called it, amounts to little more than “tbażwir”. The launch of EPPO was delayed, with the whole of the EU kept waiting while Malta took its sweet time to finalise the three nominations it was supposed to make.

Competitive tendering in public procurement? One State entity alone, Project Green, led by Labour MEP candidate Steve Ellul, had already made 600 direct orders in the first six months of its existence.

Ah, yes, and then there was the investigation into why Malta was taking so long to transpose the EU’s anti-money laundering directive into national legislation. It takes some imagination to explain if this is all by accident or a premeditated approach. 

Ensuring the government plays by the EU rules in Malta

Labour’s four MEPs are simply incapable of ensuring their party in government applies EU law properly or safeguards the rule of law.

They’re way too busy, conflating party and country, and denouncing critics for “shaming Malta”.

Now we have better tools to ensure to stamp out corruption and abuse of power in Malta, at least with regard to those aspects which fall within the EU remit. What is needed now is that these tools are effectively deployed and not lost en route from Brussels to Malta.

Labour’s MEPs are incapable of ensuring their party in government applies EU law properly or safeguards the rule of law- Peter Agius

A third MEP for the opposition forces would go a long way to allow further scrutiny on the government. I am committed to stand up to the government that abuses our rights as EU citizens. I am committed to use such new EU tools to the benefit of all of us in Malta and Gozo.

Use of OLAF can be such new tool

It turns out that Kurt Buhagiar, the developer behind the Corradino site where Jean Paul Sofia lost his life, has had no less than three applications for EU funds accepted and granted the maximum allowable limit by the Maltese managing authority of the European Agricultural Fund.

There are hundreds of applicants who never managed to benefit from any EU funding over years while Buhagiar hits the jackpot every time he decides to play.

The €360,000 in taxpayer money was ostensibly for a goat farm. Local media had rung the bell on this development already in September last year. The Sofia public inquiry also mentioned this project as smelling of fraud of EU funds. Did the police commissioner investigate? No. 

The Sofia case should have led the Maltese authorities to look more closely at other projects of the people involved. Of course, they didn’t. I had to take the initiative myself and report the matter to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) for it to investigate the case.

Local authorities cannot be relied on and we must, therefore, also consider new ways of fighting corruption through other venues.

Several people got in touch with me on the matter, expressing support that, finally, someone stood up to rampant abuse. We must give hope to people and show in a tangible way that, indeed, Europe is a tool to protect us. Like so many other opportunities the EU offers us, Malta stands to gain if we are on the ball, if we grasp opportunities and use the right tools to come to concrete results.

I am committed to use my 21-year-long experience within European institutions to fight corruption not only on the political level but also at the technical level. We need to use all tools including existing legislation and European bodies to do the necessary checks and balances on the government. This is one of my main priorities, which I want to work on if elected to the European Parliament.

For all these reasons, we must ensure that we choose the best people to represent us in the European Parliament come June 8.

Soon, we will celebrate 20 years of EU membership. So far, our EU experience has been a success story on many fronts. Corruption and bad governance in Malta and the EU’s complacency about it risks ruining our EU experience. I will not let that happen. Join me in this path. Together we can be the change we need for our country.

Peter Agius is a Nationalist Party MEP candidate.