Foreigners in Malta are frustrated about being charged higher utility tariffs than locals, two years after the EU warned it would launch infringement procedures if it found Malta was discriminating due to nationality.
When we voiced concern, they didn’t seem to think there was a problem
In 2010, two Irish MEPs claimed some 20,000 foreign residents were being charged 30 per cent more than Maltese residents for water and electricity – and nothing seems to have changed.
“We are made to pay 30 per cent more for exactly the same stuff the Maltese use. This artificial segregation as foreigners and residents makes you feel like a second-class citizen,” Brian Taylor told The Sunday Times.
“We’re all European, and if a Maltese found himself in the UK, he would pay the same tariff as a Briton,” insisted Mr Taylor, who has not taken residency but spends “more time in Malta than anywhere else in the world”.
Just like many other EU citizens in Malta, Mr Taylor pays a ‘domestic’ rate that is 30 per cent more than the ‘residential’ rate for Maltese residents.
In a letter addressed to the Irish MEPs, the government had insisted the different tariff is only applicable to non-permanent residents, irrespective of nationality.
This was permitted by EU law: individuals can be charged the same tariffs as Maltese citizens once they prove they are permanent residents and pay taxes.
Colm Regan, who works part-time on the island and lives in Gozo, believes the Maltese authorities will lose the case in Brussels because it is “pure discrimination”.
“Everyone pays the same electricity rate in other European countries. If it was legally permissible, why isn’t a two-tier system used in other countries?” he asked.
Mr Regan believes Malta has to grow up politically: “When we voiced our concern, they didn’t seem to think there was a problem with it.
“But how would you feel if you went on a bus in Ireland and was told you have to pay double because you don’t look Irish?”
Another EU resident, Lorna Aistrop, told The Sunday Times it made no difference whether one worked and paid taxes or not.
Although she has a three-year residency permit and works full-time in Malta, her landlord needs to endorse her utility account.
But her current landlord refused to sign the required documentation unless she gave him a €460 deposit.
She said if she took over the account herself it would still cost her €460 because she was a foreigner and did not own the apartment.
It was about time this “totally unfair practice” stopped, she said.
The list of complaints from European citizens about the two-tiered system goes on. Irish-Maltese Oisin Jones-Dillon, who was one of the first to discover the discrepancy two years ago, is in contact with some 750 non-Maltese EU nationals and has even taken his concerns to the European Commission.
“Foreigners are being ripped off on a daily basis. Most didn’t realise there was a difference between ‘domestic’ and ‘residential’ rates. After all, both refer to similar ‘household’ units. This is all means of deceit and theft,” he said.
Readers have also expressed frustration at having to wait months for residency permits to apply for a ‘residential’ rate, or an acknowledgement from utility billing agency Arms Ltd.
Mr Jones-Dillon said some EU citizens were so disheartened over this discrepancy they had even left the country.