In my opinion, the online article on Der Spiegel titled Malta Files enttarnen Steuervermeider, Drei deutsche Konzerne, ein Klingelknopf’ (May 21) shed an important light why the Malta Files leak has occurred.
After going through details of tax avoidance, it goes to mention cases of corruption in Malta. Quoting from this translated article:
‘’The Opposition, on the other hand, suspects [Joseph] Muscat was bribed. After all, the Prime Minister, his right hand, [Keith] Schembri, and then [Konrad] Mizzi, the Minister of Energy, had flown to Azerbaijan without a civil servant and came home with a deal. It obliges Malta to take liquefied gas for 18 years. The price is regarded as a state secret, which heats speculation.”
Of course the presumption of innocence is valid, but even if the reproaches are not there, there are still enough reasons to mistrust Malta and its politicians.
But why do the leading countries of the EU, especially Germany, do not have so much political pressure on the tiny one that Malta is finally small in tax questions? Because they do not want that, De Masi believes, not at all costs at least.
“This is like a Mafia dinner, everyone has the gun under the table in the hand, when one shoots, shoot all.”
So Der Spiegel and so many other newspapers/internet sources have expressed their feelings of mistrusting Malta. Precisely, Der Spiegel have said: “There are still enough reasons to mistrust Malta and its politicians.”
If Malta took immediate action on cases of corruption our government would have looked serious and trustworthy. Perhaps Malta Files may not have surfaced
In Malta, cases of serious corruption were ignored and dismissed in various forms such as the Prime Minister and Schembri ignoring the EU Parliament call to testify in its anti-money-laundering committee, a puppet police commissioner and unexplained resignations at the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, then of course Malta starts looking suspicious.
On the other hand if Malta took immediate action on such cases of corruption our government would have looked serious and trustworthy. Perhaps Malta Files may not have surfaced then or if they did the result may have been better.
Unfortunately Malta has no natural resources and thus we significantly currently rely on online gambling, passport selling and financial services. Someof these, although perfectly legal, areseen by many EU citizens and politicians as “immoral”.
This thus requires a very clean government that is trusted within the EU and assures that our institutions such as the police are truly independent and effective.
It is very serious then that our Prime Minister ignored investigating corruption and created an environment where such cannot be adequately investigated. Thus our Prime Minister endangered the reputation for Malta, the reputation of his own party and Malta’s income generating services.
The solution for such situation is to have Forza Nazzjonali elected, however, this is not enough. Forza Nazzjonali must truly unite all honest politicians (including the Labour Party’s) to work together and clean our reputation.
John Camilleri is a political observer.