Show us the EU money, CNI tells government

As the government boasts about the millions coming from the EU, the Campaign for National Independence claimed yesterday that Malta's financial contribution to Brussels exceeds the takings.

Former prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's CNI might be a voice in the wilderness but it has evidently not lost hope of rallying enough support to pull Malta out of the EU.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici and his elderly members of the committee have equally lost none of their allegiances and before the start of a news conference yesterday, they broke into an applause to mark former premier Dom Mintoff's 91st birthday.

"Mr Mintoff certainly disapproves of what's going on at the moment," said Dr Mifsud Bonnici, in a one-hour rant against the EU.

He challenged the government and its propagandists to prove that the promised €855 million in Cohesion Funds were really ending up in the country's coffers.

Despite the large number of EU directorates, nobody had yet given a detailed rendition of EU revenue, he said.

The only proof so far is that Malta was dishing out Lm22 million to the EU each year.

Nobody was taking into consideration the massive compliance costs, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said, citing for example the 40 new policemen engaged to monitor the Schengen agreement. However, the former Labour leader underlined the need to continue subsidising Malta Shipyards, even if it kept running at a loss. The shipyards were supporting trade and luring foreign currency.

But, even as the government hid behind its negotiated EU treaty to stop subsidising the shipyards, it had no problem in giving financial assistance to low-cost carriers, he maintained.

The revised EU treaty, recently sanctioned in Berlin, was torn to pieces by Dr Mifsud Bonnici who sees it as nothing more than an exercise in deceit.

"It is no different to the 2004 treaty; it is merely packaged differently," he charged.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici read out similar excerpts of the two treaties, though journalists pointed out that his references were merely fundamental policies of democracy, which should never be altered.

The EU was hesitant because the new treaty may once again be turned down by the electorate and was now insisting that no referendum should be held in member states, he said.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici steered clear of political controversy and when asked what he made of the fact that the Labour Party was now in effect not objecting to EU membership, he replied: "The root of all our problems is EU membership, and every political party should acknowledge that."