Taxation issues should continue to be decided by national governments, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning as he referred to the recent EU ruling ordering Ireland to recoup €13 billion from tech giant Apple over a sweetheart tax deal.
Speaking on One Radio this morning, Dr Muscat clarified that Malta did not have the same system as Ireland and it did not look like the decision would affect the Maltese system.
However, the Maltese government’s position was that taxation issues should be decided by national governments.
“We are determined to preserve and keep our system making it more competitive... We look forward to having a system that is compliant to EU and international laws…,” he said.
The government, Dr Muscat insisted, was determined to continue to make a success out of Malta for the country to remain more competitive than its competitors.
“We have a global outlook and we retain our aim to be the best in Europe,” he said.
Malta, he said, had been changed in just three years and it would continue to change. This was because his government saw what the problems were and took the necessary decisions. The same was happening right now regarding the fish farms slime problem, for example.
The situation, he said, was no longer acceptable.
“We cannot have a situation where half the fish farm cages in Malta are illegal… In spite of the threats we face that taking action will cause unemployment with operators going elsewhere, we have to take action.
“Our country is not a rubbish dump… there are more cages than permits, we have rules, and although we lack regulations regarding the operations of such farms we will be drawing these up… We are pro-business but rules have to be obeyed.”
He said that faced with such a situation he did not know whether to laugh or cry when he heard former Environment Minister Mario de Marco lecture the government on what it should do.
“He was an environment minister, why did he not take action himself,” Dr Muscat asked.
The Prime Minister also spoke on unemployment noting that Malta had the lowest unemployment rate in the EU and saying this was due to the work that had been done, with jobs being created by the private sector giving dignity to people who were on schemes which were supposedly temporary but had become permanent.
His government, he said, had taken the necessary decisions on projects and the Planning Authority had now taken its first decision regarding St Luke’s Hospital, which was closed and abandoned when Malta’s new hospital was too small.
The government had also farmed out operations to the private sector to mitigate the waiting list situation and all this was leading credit agencies to give Malta glowing reports.
He noted that 12,000 children had used the children’s emergency department since its opening in December.