The Opposition cannot move a motion to change the legal notice on the citizenship scheme and can only move for its revocation, the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice, Owen Bonnici said this morning.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil told a press conference yesterday that the Opposition would move a motion to amend the legal notice about the rules of the scheme, so as to bring it into line with what was agreed between the government and the European Union.

But Dr Bonnici told TVAM that in terms of the law, the Opposition could move a motion to delete a legal notice, but not to amend it.

He insisted that the legal notice had been agreed with the European Commission.

Mario de Marco, deputy leader of the Opposition, said such an attitude showed yet again that the government was refusing to listen to advice.

He said progress had been made in the way the citizenship scheme would be administered, the government had come around to the opposition's arguments, albeit after three legal notices, but there was room for improvement, particularly in the area of residence by dependants of the applicants.