There was nothing to be proud of when the European Parliament saw it fit to discuss the rule of law in Malta. Rule of law in a western democracy should be an automatic assumption.
It was a day that Maltese politics went to the European Parliament and achieved nothing. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s argument that the allegations of corruption were all “fake news” was a throwback to the election campaign just past. During election campaigns, truth, like in war, is always the first casualty.
The debate reached its worst point when the Prime Minister’s sniggered. Pana committee head Werner Langen told him he was treating Parliament with disdain and vowed to ensure that Dr Muscat would be held to account over the Panama Papers scandal. The Prime Minister is still to appear before the Pana committee, as he prefers to await the outcome of a magisterial inquiry into allegations concerning Egrant’s ownership.
But away from the rhetoric, one true picture emerged from the sitting in Strasbourg: the damage caused by the government’s inaction over the Panama Papers.
Dr Muscat ostensibly went to face the Parliament to ‘defend Malta’s name’. But he faced an assault from MEPs of all shades on Malta’s tax system and, by implication, its financial services, with MEPs using local political controversies and scandals to substantiate their arguments. Dr Muscat was effectively defending his government and himself, rather than the country.
The ensuing controversy over the contribution of Nationalist MEPs to the debate has to be seen in that light. David Casa and Roberta Metsola came in the firing line of former General Workers’ Union general secretary Tony Zarb who branded them as traitors. He went on to call Mr Langen a persona non grata. These terms hark back to the Labour Party’s dark days in the 1980s when anyone critical of the government was declared a traitor and ‘interfering’ foreigners deported.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna called such ranting “hate speech”, only to get a backlash from the chief executive of the Social Welfare Foundation Services, Alfred Grixti, a former Labour official. Mr Zarb is not alone in his thinking.
The Prime Minister took a somewhat distant stance. He would not go into who did or did not betray Malta and said he disagreed with the use of such terminology. He did, however, say the Nationalist MEPs had to accept public scrutiny.
It was a hollow statement. He did not defend, as he should have, the Nationalist MEPs’ right to speak freely in international fora, even if they are critical of his own government. That would have shown political maturity, true national unity in plurality and a rejection of Labour’s divisive pseudo-nationalism of the 1970s and 1980s.
Dr Muscat enters dangerous waters here. Still flushed with a stunning electoral victory, he must tread carefully as his status within the party has probably come close to that enjoyed by his predecessor, Dom Mintoff. That was when the Labour leader was equated to the party, the party to the government and the government to the State.
Dr Muscat has promised national unity. This is not a good start. The government is not the State and if his staunch supporters do not know that, he should tell it to them, publicly, before regression sets in.