Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia said on Sunday that the government was “complicit with those using Malta for illicit purposes”, damaging an international reputation that had taken years to build.

In a brief telephone intervention on Radio 101, Dr Delia said the issue had been made clear at the EPP summit in Brussels earlier this week, which coincided with the arrest of Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminejad in the US.

The role of the Opposition at EU level, he said, was to highlight the government’s actions and to show that people in Malta were willing to stand up for what was right.

Dr Delia said he had also used the summit to highlight concerns about migration, pointing to statistics which, he claimed, indicated that Europe would “no longer be Christian” by 2050 and calling for a clear strategy to manage the change.

A major study by the Pew Research Centre in 2015 projected that the Christian population would decline by 2050, but remain by far the largest religious group at around 65 per cent of the European population.

Other important issues raised at the summit, Dr Delia added, included the effect of Brexit and the need to ensure that the rights of Maltese citizens were respected.

Speaking from Gozo, where he was leading a party fundraising drive, he hailed a “record-breaking” haul, and said the party’s pledge to keep the island at the centre of its plans was already yielding fruit.

He said the country needed, more than ever, an Opposition that spoke with one voice to stand up in favour of democracy.