First the government ignored the pleas, then it ridiculed the requests. When that failed, it fought tooth and nail against the Omtzigt Report that contained both the pleas and the requests. So much so that several Members of Parliament from European countries told me of their bewilderment at receiving messages from the Maltese embassies in their respective capital cities urging them to vote against the Report.
This Report was the report that the government needed to kill while still in the womb.
Government hubris simply could not afford such a damning report – with all its excruciating and harrowing details about the scandals plaguing our reputation and livelihoods – to see the light of day.
In particular, it could not bear the sight and sound of the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose assassination breathed life into Omtzigt’s Report, haunting it again.
I was present at the Council of Europe Assembly in Strasbourg when, in January 2018, the Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt tabled his motion for a Resolution signed by well over 100 Assembly members from across Europe and from all political groups. Essentially, his motion’s leitmotif was the need for a public inquiry in view of the government’s unwillingness to establish whether the assassination could have been avoided.
Then, last May, in Paris, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Assembly was presented with the final version of Omtzigt’s Report. Its 73 paragraphs were replete with a detailed, factual analysis of Malta’s constitutional, legal and political infrastructure. Never before had a European Union Member State been faced with such a damning bill of indictment by one of Europe’s foremost institutions.
During that meeting, the Maltese government presented more than 40 amendments to the Report. Had these been accepted, the Report would have ended up being a damp squib. It would not have even felt remotely like a slap on the government’s wrist.
I argued forcefully, in the dignified presence of Andrew Caruana Galizia, against those amendments and their underlying motive. They would have been a re-enactment of Shakespeare’s “fair is foul, and foul is fair”. The world turned upside down.
Azerbaijan, the corruptor par excellence, came to the rescue of its Maltese partner in crime for each government amendment
The Legal Affairs Committee, made up of MPs from all political groups spanning the length and breadth of Europe, roundly shot down all the government’s amendments and explanations.
The stage was set for the showdown in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
Government pulled out all the stops. No holds were barred when lobbying against the Omtzigt Report that intensified in the last four weeks, involving our embassies and Foreign Ministry officials, and more. The largest ever Maltese government delegation to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in the last few years knocked till late at night on the doors of all the other countries’ delegation offices in Strasbourg.
Some listened politely – but with incredulity – to the mental gymnastics performed by the government members. Others bluntly told the Maltese Labour MPs that their arguments would not and could not wash. Some, even from among the European Socialists, expressed their disgust (which they then repeated publicly during the Plenary debate) at the character assassination of Pieter Omtzigt.
“But how, on what grounds, can you be opposed to a public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder?” asked some MPs rhetorically to the Labour MPs. “How on earth can you keep defending government officials with secret offshore companies?” exclaimed others.
During Wednesday’s afternoon session of the Legal Affairs Committee in Strasbourg, government MPs presented 13 amendments to the Report, two of which of critical import as they would have removed all reference to the impunity charge and removed the call for a public inquiry.
One after the other, each amendment was shot down (except a minor one adding a mere adjective to “conflict of interest”).
Seeing the country that voted in favour the government’s amendments spoke volumes. I cringed in embarrassment. Azerbaijan, the corruptor par excellence, came to the rescue of its Maltese partner in crime for each government amendment. There is honour among thieves, after all.
The scene was lived again later on at 6pm, this time even more forcefully with trenchant significance, when the Report was debated and voted upon in the Plenary Assembly.
Speaker after speaker – Liberals, Socialists, Conservatives, EPP and others – expressed their “disgust”, “irritation”, “anger”, “frustration” and “sadness” at the Maltese government’s sleaze, corruption, impunity and dismissive attitude of the criticism being levelled at it in the “litany of reports” against it. One Liberal MP forcefully told government MPs: “When in a hole, stop digging”.
In the morning, I had been chosen to speak on behalf of the EPP Group for this debate. I was humbled and honoured by the responsibility. I addressed the Assembly with a heavy heart about the situation in the country I love.
I spoke about the impunity that reigns supreme in Malta, on how the journalist who had exposed most of the mega corruption scandals listed in Omtzigt’s Report was the one brutally killed – an assassination planned by people with access to the highest corridors of power.
At 8pm, the Report was put to the vote and approved with a large majority. Europe’s broadest Assembly of Parliamentarians had just proclaimed its revulsion at “the personal protection of Prime Minister Muscat” for the “impunity” of “individuals such as Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Brian Tonna”.
It called on Malta to establish within three months “an independent public inquiry” into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.
The long day had ended. This chapter was closed. Now another chapter starts being written with even more vim and vigour.
Jason Azzopardi is an Opposition MP.