In the past few years of economic crises, a number of European Parliaments voted for cuts in the salaries of ministers and parliamentarians. The Italian Parliament I formed part of in 2006-2008 voted to cut ministers’ salaries by 10 per cent and by five per cent for parliamentarians in the 2006 Budget. The 2007 Budget, which I voted for and was passed, contained a reduction in the perks parliamentarians enjoyed.
I had personally even gone one step further by proposing that any official flights by ministers, senators and parliamentarians up to five hours should always be in economy class. My proposal, which made it to the national press, met with initial resistance but was eventually adopted: all flights to Europe and North Africa are to be booked in economy class.
In Malta, today, the reverse logic is being applied as if the island were not part of the global crisis and ordinary people were not losing the spending power of their scant salaries day by day. Despite such crisis, the Maltese Cabinet voted for a substantial increase for both ministers and parliamentarians.
I ask myself: Is it legal for Cabinet to authorise such raises, even backdated, to boot, without the consent of Parliament?
The Nationalist government says Labour MPs were the ones who mostly insisted for the raise and that Labour Whip Joe Mizzi was informed and agreed to the proposed raises. Mr Mizzi denies this. This obviously means that, as so often happens, somebody in the Maltese Parliament is blatantly lying.
Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat has taken his usual one-foot-here-one-foot there stand: instead of deciding forcefully that nobody in his party will accept, he and a few other Labour MPs will refuse the raise but he has left it to individual MPs to decide according to their needs.
A survey by The Times has shown that many MPs on both sides of the House are in a quandary, not knowing whether to accept it or not. My opinion is that, in such a period of belt tightening for a substantial part of the population, the raise for ministers is absolutely unjustified. So are the added six salaries being paid for the creation, out of the blue, of six posts of parliamentary assistants in order to placate the egos of six unhappy PN backbenchers who had been sending out veiled “Da Vinci Code” messages to their leader that they were ready to upset the government applecart.
On the other hand, a €27,000 salary for parliamentarians (and even a bit more) would be totally justified but only if the elected MPs give up their normal work for the five-year period and act as full-time parliamentarians. The present part-time MP charade, launched in 1921, in particular to suit lawyer MPs, must end if we want to have a real national Parliament acting effectively and efficiently in the background of EU membership.
What is the use of building an imposing parliamentary building at the entrance to Valletta if it is only going to be used by part-time politicians, including those who defend the interests of their clients in the law courts till 1 p.m., have their espresso at Cordina’s at 2 p.m., see clients (and prospective voters!) in their private offices from 3-6 p.m. every day? Why spend so many millions of euros on the new parliamentary building if this will only be used for a few hours a week by part-time politicians?
A raise in salary for MPs is only warranted and deserved if they turn full time. And, of course, politicians’ performance should be judged on quality and not merely on pay.
In the meantime, the quandary and conscience-wracking of a number of poor MPs continues, with a good number of PN parliamentarians already having decided on accepting the raise... while remaining part-timers.
On the other hand, the day of Dr Muscat’s press conference announcing his “gran rifiuto”, the Labour parliamentary group announced it would be “seriously reflecting” on the issue.
May I suggest they might add to their “serious reflection” some Garuda-Purana meditation and Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which might be conducive for the taking of the appropriate opportunistic decisions.
arnoldcassola@gmail.com
Prof. Cassola is spokesman on EU and international affairs of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green party.