The government has again shown that it is inept in dealing with the crucial issue of restoring the country’s damaged reputation in the eyes of the international community.
The golden passports scheme is not a niche issue. It goes to the heart of European values, especially now the European Union is experiencing threats to its security.
It is no surprise that 595 MEPs last week voted in favour of a resolution to call for a ban on citizenship-by-investment schemes in the EU and calling on the European Commission to adopt legislation.
It is embarrassing for Malta that four Labour Party MEPs went against the will of the S&D group and voted against the resolution. Their stubborn denial of the damage being caused to Malta’s reputation puts in doubt their social democratic credentials.
Prime Minister Robert Abela and Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship Alex Muscat, the ardent promoters of the passport scheme, resorted to semantic arguments to justify their intransigent stance in defending it.
Muscat claimed that the scheme is in fact not a golden passport scheme.
Following its suspension for Russian and Belarusian nationals, Abela contended that this was not a U-turn but “rather proof that the authorities are serious about their due diligence obligations”. U-turns are more than justified when politicians are forced to understand that their arguments are fallacious.
European Parliament president Roberta Metsola said that stopping the sale of passports must be part of an action plan to divorce Europe from Russian influence.
Dutch MEP Sophie Int’ Veld, who authored the report on the golden passports issue, was diplomatic when she said: “These schemes are letting in very unsavoury and shady individuals. Is it unfair to ask Malta to scrap the scheme? I don’t know. Is it fair for Malta or other countries to create that risk to the EU? I don’t think so.”
Int’ Veld rightly argued that: “We should not only stop the processing for new applications but also look at those already granted.”
The government must now scrap the embarrassing golden passport scheme without waiting for the 2025 proposed deadline.
The PN should abandon its ambivalent stance on the scheme and confirm its support for the European Parliament’s decision.
Further delays in taking remedial action will only continue to depict Malta as a pariah state ready to commoditise EU rights and values. Two US congressmen have also presented a bill that seeks to ban from the US’s visa waiver programme countries that sell citizenship by investment.
The prime minister’s argument that the passports scheme enabled Malta to address the risks of the pandemic and support social projects does not hold water.
The end hardly ever justifies the means. Abela should instead have acknowledged that, had it not been for the waste of vast amounts of taxpayers’ money in the years of his predecessor Joseph Muscat’s administration, the country would be better prepared to address the fiscal challenges ahead of it.
Revenue from the golden passports scheme has been making up for the loss of public funds into private pockets through graft and corruption.
The European Commission has been slow in taking decisive action against the notorious selling of passports, preferring that the different member states offering these schemes scrap them voluntarily.
Thanks to the European Parliament’s overwhelming decision to push for action, it is now being made to act.
For once, the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party should show a united front by agreeing that the citizenship-by-investment scheme is no longer part of their economic strategy.