CNI terms EU criticism as national humiliation

The harsh criticism European Commissioner Neelie Kroes levelled at the Maltese government regarding its plans to write off the €100 million shipyards debt was nothing short of "national humiliation", the Campaign for National Independence (CNI) said.

The CNI, headed by former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, said Ms Kroes' statement underlines the sovereignty the government of Malta lacks when it comes to dealing with national issues. Ms Kroes said at the end of a brief visit to Malta last week that EU state aid rules had to be adhered to, stressing that the government's plan to write off the shipyards' €100 million debt went against EU regulations.

CNI said that, without going into the merits of the decision itself, once the government decided that it was in the best interest of the country to write off the shipyards' debt, the country should not accept that foreign humiliation and interference would make the government change its mind.

The CNI insisted that the shipyard's debt will be footed by the government no matter the outcome. Even if the debt was not written off, CNI said, it would still not be paid to the government because the shipyards would be liquidated.

If, on the other hand, a prospective buyer would be charged with settling the debt, the price the buyer would pay for the shipyards would be merely reduced by the amount owed to the government. In essence, the CNI added, this means that the government would be effectively footing the debt once again.

The CNI also urged any shipyards workers who wanted to keep working there to form a cooperative and, with the assistance of a strategic foreign "partner", take over the dockyard themselves.

The "partner" could provide professional management and aggressive marketing to the shipyards. In this way, it said, the shipyards would remain in Maltese hands and not return to being a foreign maritime base.