Malta’s EU presidency has come and, in four months, will go but its fallout will be with us for longer.

Besides the hype, mainly for the benefit of the Muscat government, I would say the presidency is leaving most of the people indifferent and has alienated that section of the population who was most in favour of it. What came across during the week-long bash in Malta by the European Commission was that of a group of people more intent to enjoy a holiday break, taking in the winter sun and acting like any other tourist would, than a body tackling the important issues that concern the people.

The commission failed miserably to deal with corruption, a topic uppermost in the mind of most Maltese, as can be seen from the results of successive opinion polls. Corruption has been the trademark of the Muscat government from day one, with the Café Premier scandal involving Joseph Muscat himself. We later discovered, when the Panama Papers scandal broke, that at least two of the most powerful people in the Muscat government had, a few days after winning the election, opened companies in secretive Panama.

If one wants to gauge to see how indifferent the Maltese were to the European Commission’s visit, just click on the two most used words during that week. There was no “Juncker” but “brothel” and “pastizzi”.

This leads me to conclude that all of this plays beautifully in the hands of Muscat and his government as it has clearly alienated those who had voted for Malta to join the EU and, at the same time, encouraged those who, like Muscat, had voted to stay out. No wonder you get Brexit or, possibly, Frexit.