Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is urging the Opposition to withdraw a parliamentary motion to repeal new eligibility rules for universities seeking accreditation.
Dr Muscat said the Nationalist Party should take heed of what Martin Scicluna, who heads the National Commission for Higher Education that spearheaded the changes, said last week.
Mr Scicluna denied the changes were meant to lower the standards for university accreditation, insisting the new rules allowed for more pluralism. Quality checks would remain in force and rigorously applied, Mr Scicluna added.
The PN has campaigned against the rule changes, insisting they were meant to accommodate the proposed American University of Malta.
Mr Scicluna also denied the changes had anything to do with the application filed by the American University of Malta or that the commission had any political interference.
Interviewed on One Radio, Dr Muscat said up to a few weeks ago the PN had used negative comments made by Mr Scicluna about the government’s performance as part of its local council election campaign. The reference was to Mr Scicluna’s appearance on TV discussion programme Times Talk earlier this year when he gave the government zero points on the environment and a poor grade for meritocracy.
“We [the government] might not have agreed with Martin Scicluna at the time but we told him nothing. The PN on the other hand championed him as a credible person,” Dr Muscat said.
He insisted if the Opposition respected Mr Scicluna’s views the parliamentary motion should be withdrawn unless they wanted to be accused of double standards.
Touching on the subject of migration and the proposal by the European Commission for an emergency burden sharing mechanism to kick in, Dr Muscat said Malta had to show solidarity.
Given the low number of arrivals over the past two years, the Commission has proposed initiating the emergency measure for Italy and Greece, which means Malta will take some 145 migrants per year for two years from these two countries.
Dr Muscat insisted Malta had to be consistent with its long-held position that the migration burden should be shared.
“I prefer taking in 120 migrants entering the country legally by plane and knowing that we can handle them rather than thousands coming here illegally by sea as this can create a burden. At the same time I have my mind at rest that if an emergency crops up in Malta we will also be helped.”
The Commission proposal singles out Malta as a potential candidate for emergency provisions if the country faces a sudden influx.