The Individual Investor Programme has created a lively debate between those in favour and those otherwise.

When selling our passport for €650,000, we are not really selling a Maltese passport but a European Union one. If we were not in the EU, something that Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat fought so vehemently against, it would not be worth a red cent. Most of us Maltese are wheeler dealers and that includes governments past and present.

As a country with no resources that cannot feed a quarter of its population, lacking water sources and now possibly running out of stone, we have to reinvent ourselves as we have been doing since the closure of the military bases. I believe that we started with the shipping register and then other schemes followed like internet gambling, financial services, etc.

So I do not see anything wrong with the Individual Investor Programme, so long as the EU does not raise any objection.

Finally, I don’t like Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil’s Mintoffian threat (if I don’t play, I spoil) to cancel any citizenship given under this scheme.