A second sacrificial lamb bit the dust in Strasbourg yesterday as the European Parliament resoundingly rejected the nomination of former environment minister Leo Brincat to the European Court of Auditors.
Mr Brincat had just managed to scrape through the Budgetary Control Committee but failed yesterday at second stage with 381 of MEPs voting against him and 229 in favour. The European Parliament vote was consultative and it is now up to the Council of Ministers to decide Mr Brincat’s fate.
It should have never come to this. The bottom line is the Panama scandal that involves Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. It is an albatross around Joseph Muscat’s neck, which will continue to haunt him.
Learning nothing from the strong rejection of the Labour Party’s former deputy leader, Toni Abela, the Prime Minister was obstinate in pushing Mr Brincat, who had to answer for the Panama scandal all over again. Mr Brincat came out with surprising statements, including that he had considered resigning his ministerial post in the wake of the Panama papers. But he added weakly that he had to vote on party lines in Parliament when it discussed a vote of no confidence in Dr Mizzi. That could not have gone down well.
It’s pointless Mr Brincat saying that at no stage were his integrity, competence, knowledge and experience put in any doubt. He formed part of a government that has done nothing over the immense Panama scandal.
The European People’s Party, the Nationalist Party’s political grouping in the European Parliament, was adamant when it said on Monday it cannot “in its wildest dreams accept Mr Brincat as a member of the European Court of Auditors, out of all institutions, as he was, until recently, part and parcel of the government”.
The EPP went even further by throwing into the mix the sale of Maltese/European citizenship, the so-called IIP scheme that has been controversial since its launch.
The implication is that government policy, where it regards the European Union, is out of sync with the thinking of many European parliamentarians. The fear now is that Malta’s favourable tax regime for foreign companies will become a diplomatic tussle too.
The government’s reaction to the European Parliament vote was a throwback to Labour of the 1980s, accusing the Nationalist Party of partisanship and of playing political games against the national interest. But the national interest had called for the removal of both Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri, something that was not done despite calls from within the Labour Party itself. It would be delusional of the government to think that this is some international PN conspiracy and would only be burying its head in the sand if it believes its own statements.
The European parliamentarians have higher ethical standards than the Labour Party. The vote on Mr Brincat was a vote of no confidence in the government with which he is associated.
This does not augur well for Malta’s relations with the EU, even if the Prime Minister gets Mr Brincat’s name approved by the Council of Ministers, as he intends to do.
The Labour government has to understand that the Panama issue is not some local conspiracy by “cyber terrorists”. It is not a speculation or an invention. It is an issue of basic political ethics, on which no action has been taken by the Prime Minister and he is now paying the price.