Brussels is still analysing Malta’s response to an investigation it launched in 2009 on the issue of pensions of former British servicemen.
The issue was raised once again in the European Parliament (EP) by Labour’s head of delegation, MEP Louis Grech. But the only response from the responsible Commissioner, Laszlo Andor, was another promise that the EU’s executive’s probe should soon come to some sort of conclusion.
“The Commission is currently finalising its analysis of the Maltese authorities’ reply to its Letter of Formal Notice,” Mr Andor told Mr Grech.
The Commissioner’s answer is similar to the one he gave in October to a question put by Nationalsit MEP Simon Busuttil, who wanted an update on the situation. That time too, Mr Andor had said his services were finalising their response.
Sources close to the European Parliament yesterday told The Times that it was becoming clear that the EU executive was taking this issue somewhat lightly.
Infringement proceedings against Malta were instituted in 2009 after a Commission probe that started in 2006 following the receipt of three petitions on the issue.
The government sent its response soon afterwards and the Commission is still to come out with its first analysis.
“It is becoming very clear that the Commission is not hurrying over this issue. Many of those affected, ex-British servicemen who have been suffering since 1979, have already passed away or are today too old to fight on,” the sources observed. If the Commission is not satisfied with the Maltese response to the first of its three-pronged legal process, it will move on to issue a reasoned opinion. The issue affects some 6,000 former British servicemen whose UK pension was, over the years, deducted from the national insurance pension they qualified for.
It goes back to the Mintoff years when in 1979 a Labour government decided to put a ceiling on pensions in a way that forced former British servicemen, who were entitled to two pensions, to relinquish one of them.
Following an almost four-year investigation into a 2006 petition filed by Joseph Caruana, a former British servicemen, the European Commission issued an infringement notice against the island in late 2009 saying that Maltese legislation was not in conformity with EU law.
The government argues that the provisions of a law enacted in 1979 cannot be in breach of EU rules as Malta only became an EU member 25 years later.