More than a thousand Maltese citizens living in Australia have signed a petition, launched just last week, against the government’s controversial cash-for-citizenship scheme.
The petition is organised by new committee called Maltese Pride. It calls on the Maltese government to reconsider the scheme because it is inflicting “incalculable harm” on Malta’s reputation abroad.
The petitioners say they are “extremely proud of their Maltese citizenship acquired as a birth right” and that Maltese citizens in Australia are “dismayed at the government’s action in placing Maltese citizenship for sale on the open market”.
“We strongly object to the government lowering the status of Maltese citizenship,” the petition states.
Home to hundreds of thousands of Maltese, many second or third generation Maltese living in Australia have chosen to obtain a Maltese second citizenship through a programme launched by the government a few years ago.
Interest in acquiring a Maltese passport increased substantially following the island’s accession to the EU. This passport is only given to those who are direct descendants of Maltese.
Contacted by Times of Malta at his residence in Melbourne yesterday, Victor Borg, a long-standing member of the Maltese Community Council of Victoria and one of the petition’s coordinators, said that many Maltese in Australia could not believe the government was trying to sell citizenship.
We cannot allow our country to become a worldwide joke
“I have received tens of requests to do something about this and the response of more than a thousand signatures in one week is overwhelming. Many Maltese here are in complete disbelief about what is going on in their homeland.”
Asked whether the Maltese community in Australia was discussing the issue, Mr Borg said it had become the main subject of conversation among the Maltese community, particularly following last week’s debate at the European Parliament which was also covered on Australian media networks.
“Many have followed the EP debate on TV even here and the comments by MEPs about Malta were quite embarrassing,” he said.
“It seems that the Maltese government is not aware that Malta is becoming an international joke and we are very hurt about this. Until a few weeks ago, everyone talked highly about Malta. Now, everyone is passing jokes about us. We cannot stomach this any longer and that is why we decided to do something about it,” he said.
The petition, which Mr Borg said would be sent to Malta to be presented in Parliament, calls on the Maltese government to abandon the scheme and heed the concerns expressed by the European Parliament.