For too long, western democracies have taken their freedom for granted. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how true is the saying that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
When Vladimir Putin ordered the might of his armed forces into Ukraine, the democratic world faced a stark choice: engage in a military war against the aggressor or take up economic arms to slowly paralyse the Russian economy.
Pain would accompany both these options. But engaging in a potential widespread war with an unpredictable nuclear power is not a realistic scenario and western democracies do not appear well enough prepared to fight a conventional war.
The second option, of imposing economic sanctions against Russia, will undoubtedly have a serious impact on the Russian economy. It will also affect the economies of EU countries that have some form of trade with Russia. This is a necessary sacrifice that freedom-loving countries must make.
The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the European Commission are in the process of placing heavy sanctions on the Russian state. Among them are a ban on all transactions with the Russian central bank and the removal of some of the country’s lenders from the SWIFT global payments system.
This decision has been described as the “financial nuclear option”. It will have collateral damage on countries that do business with Russia, including Malta, which has some important private investments in that country.
Another critical decision the US and western allies have taken is to crack down on “golden passports” so as not to allow wealthy Russians “connected to the Russian government” to buy EU citizenship.
Prime Minister Robert Abela has shamefully been non-committal on this issue. He has failed to answer direct questions on whether Malta will block Russian applicants to the country’s citizenship-by-investment programme, even though his finance minister has said that Malta would adopt any EU sanctions.
By failing to promptly confirm that Malta will not sell passports to Russian oligarchs, Malta has missed an opportunity to express concrete solidarity with Ukraine. This is not about Abela’s “robust due diligence” but about sending an unequivocal message to Maltese citizens and to international partners that Malta is prepared to do its part, despite some pain.
Sitting on the fence for as long as possible is not the kind of leadership needed in these challenging times. And it will only damage Malta’s already tattered international reputation.
Most EU counties, including Malta, have rightly closed their air space to Russian aircraft. Malta is also offering help to Ukrainians in the area of healthcare, while Abela has vaguely assured that Ukraine’s dark red-list status for travel will not hamper our aid effort. This is not good enough. Malta needs to remove all COVID-19 obstacles when faced with people fleeing for their lives. Couple Malta’s seemingly half-hearted positions with the Malta Football Association’s failure to boycott matches against Russia and we come across as self-centred.
It is to be hoped that an election-occupied Abela is not seriously weighing the option of adopting an isolationist strategy by failing to endorse the complete set of sanctions against Russia.
Adopting a united front with the western world will not be painless. While our direct trade with Russia may not be significant, the country’s open economy is likely to be hit by increases in the prices of oil, gas and food commodities like wheat. Air travel is also expected to become more expensive and likely to affect tourism.
It is time we all understand this is a price worth paying to defend our democratic freedoms against autocracy.