Some years ago we went on a package holiday organised by a tour operator. The group was a mixed bunch, but two couples stood out. They had come determined to off-load some false bank notes that they had been lumped with in the course of business.

No-one could possibly blame them if they passed the dud bank notes on to unsuspecting foreign shops which they would never visit again. It was the shop-owners’ fault, our fellow travellers assured each other during our interminable coach rides, that the staff did not check the bank notes properly. They were not troubled with anything as cumbersome as the ethics or morality of their actions. They had determined their financial goal and went about efficiently to fulfil it.

By the end of the trip, these two couples had successfully off-loaded all their false bank notes, besmirched Malta’s and the tour operator’s name with a string of foreign small shop-owners, and thoroughly alienated the rest of us.

I was reminded of this episode by the amoral brazenness that our government has put on display for the delectation of the EU politicians and functionaries in Malta during its six-month stint in the EU presidency. And just this week, our EU colleagues could compare this sorry state of affairs with the way things are done in other EU countries.

In France, the presidential candidacy of the odds-on favourite is threatening to derail because his wife was apparently paid for work not actually done. And a Dutch minister has resigned on accusations that he withheld information from parliament.

Yet in sunny Malta Konrad and Sai Mizzi have done worse than the Dutch and French politicos put together, but they swan through their seemingly charmed lives. The wife of another politician is caught making apparently fraudulent use of a disabled-badge sticker and her reaction is: “Yeah, so what?!” Government plays three-card tricks with the report of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit report on the Panama issue and it’s just another show.

What gobsmacks me at this point is not so much the wrongdoing, because that happens in some form or other under every administration. It is the doublethink belief at the highest levels that one has done no wrong unless one is actually caught red-handed.

The complete inability to appreciate that in a democracy, the standard for political integrity is higher than the bar for criminal culpability. That no amount of ‘efficiency’ and competence’ can replace the loss of trust in a government mired in strong suspicions of corruption.

We can expect some disapproving noises and a couple of hard questions in the upcoming Panama Committee hearings, but you can bet that there will be no public shaming or repudiation of the Maltese government

However, whoever thought that the EU would come charging to the rescue of Maltese and European democratic values is being naïve. The calculation Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is making is that no fellow EU government, nor the Commission itself, is going to be seen to interfere publicly in the internal affairs of a member country on the basis of ‘partisan’ allegations of corruption, even when these are backed by strong circumstantial evidence.

We can expect some disapproving noises and a couple of hard questions in the upcoming Panama Committee hearings, but you can bet that there will be no public shaming or repudiation of the Maltese government.

But behind the scenes will be a different story. We are seeing a clear distancing of the EU structures from the Maltese government. Toni Abela and Leo Brincat have already paid dearly for this government’s misdeeds. The Commission rejected out of hand a proposal by Muscat on migration policy. Serious doubts have been raised about Malta’s credibility to champion tax evasion regulations that its top politicians have already broken in spirit.

The Maltese EU presidency will pass without major disasters, but Alfred Sant is already talking down expectations for its outcomes. By and large, the EU will stick to tried and tested realpolitik. But they can see that the king has no clothes. Malta will be shamed, and this government will clap itself on the back for having made it through with hardly a scratch.

A merciful Maltese Church

Whatever happened to the Elder Brother of the Prodigal Son? Well, it seems that lately he has been spluttering all over the internet after reading our bishops’ far-sighted document on access to the sacraments for believers who are in irregular stable relationships.

Or, as the Elder Brother and all his latter-day avatars would put it, pandering to the shameless poġġuti. A lot of the flack the bishops are getting sounds suspiciously like: “Damn, first they eat all the forbidden fruit and then they are allowed to join our club. If only I had known…”

I know many people who after a hellish first marriage found new hope and joy in a solid second relationship, only to receive a double whammy from a Church they perceived as barring them from the healing mercy and forgiveness of the Lord.

The bishops and Pope Francis have not changed the standards of what constitutes a good marriage. Theirs is a humble Church that does not engage in cultural wars but walks with people in their daily lives. It does not compromise on its core beliefs, but prefers to form consciences rather than demand blind faith.

For some, that is deeply disturbing and disorienting. But then so was Jesus.