Ara x’qala l-bahar!

There do not seem to be that many takers for the Campaign for National Independence (CNI) drive to get Malta out of the EU. So, after telling us for years that with Malta in the EU the country would lose its privileged position between Christian Europe and Muslim North Africa [yawn] and many immigrant making full use of the metaphor in real life, the organisation has moved to everyone’s favourite topic:

The Campaign for National Independence (CNI) is to launch a nation-wide campaign to collect signatures for a petition against illegal immigration.

The petition will urge the Maltese government to take urgent action to stop migration, which CNI described as a threat to the country.

Members of CNI headed by former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici will be going around all localities collecting the signatures starting on Monday afternoon in front of Marsa parish church.

If you recall, Mifsud-Bonnici was last seen collecting the, umm, “Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights” on Mintoff’s behalf:

It [the prize] also acknowledged Mr Mintoff’s endeavors to rid the Mediterranean of war fleets and nuclear weapons to make way for security, peace and prosperity.

And when you’ve “cleared” the Med of war fleets and nukes clearing it of illegal immigrants should be child’s play, no?

A textbook case

Someday courses in marketing will include this case as an example of worst possible PR:

Charity event turns city square into a ’slum’

Great Siege Square, Valletta, becomes a “slum” this weekend as eight members of the voluntary Marana Thà Catholic Charismatic Community simulate urban poverty.

Slum Survivor, Street Children kicked off last night and ends at noon tomorrow. Participants are living off a limited diet of bread and rice and enduring challenges reminiscent of children’s everyday life in the slums, including a scavenger hunt for biscuits.

The money raised will be donated to St Joseph’s Home in Sta Venera to provide the boys at the institute with a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to Germany.

And can anyone understand the connection between slums and St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera?

In case you didn’t know

In case you didn’t know (and I count myself with you lot) in Malta it’s illegal to beg:

A Romanian was yesterday jailed for a week after being found guilty of begging outside churches in Valletta.

Alexandru Luca, 31, would wait in Republic Street for people leaving church after Mass and beg for money, annoying people so much that they filed a report with the police, Police Sergeant Raymond Vella testified yesterday.

The man had “even begged from a priest”, he added.

After a week of receiving reports about the Romanian, PS Vella asked him to stop begging as the practice was illegal. Mr Luca disregarded several police orders and carried on asking for alms. He was arraigned looking somewhat the worse for wear and admitted to disobeying police orders and begging.

Oh my God, he even begged from a priest. What’s this country coming to? It unclear how far Luca managed to annoy churchgoers but note please that all begging, whether of the annoying or non-annoying variety is illegal. Or probably begging while being Romanian considering the number of times you get accosted walking down Republic Street by people asking you to contribute for whatever cause.

Lessons badly drawn

Keith Grech on the lessons he drew recently (warning: lawyer’s tortured English in the second paragraph):

I have always been pro-European Union membership, a position which understandably at times created difficulties in my relationship with the Labour Party.

This notwithstanding, however, on reading the Draft Election Document of the European People’s Party being proposed as the basis for their electoral manifesto in view of next June’s European Parliamentary Elections, I couldn’t but reflect on the irony of the fact that now it is the European People’s Party, to which the Nationalist Party is affiliated, itself that is ridiculing those who in the years leading up to the Referendum on European Union Membership in Malta pooh-poohed the Labour Party’s idea of a ‘Partnership’ with the European Union.

In fact, the EPP categorically states that “European countries which cannot or do not want to become members of the European Union, should be offered a close partnership with the EU.” [my emphasis]

That might have been the right lesson to draw, had Keith got all the details right. First, the partnership Labour was proposing in 2003 was an industrial free trade area, a pick-and-mix in which picking and mixing were decided by Labour with the EU meekly nodding. That such an agreement was unprecedented was bad enough; heads of government meekly nodding and allowing the Maltese government to call the shots and set the conditions was what was truly ridiculous which, six years on, Keith is still unable to see.

Not that partnership — different and more punitive from what Labour said it would get — was not available. “We signed one with Syria”, commissioner Verheugen said on a Maltese TV programme some time ahead of the referendum. The point was that after you agree to what the heads of government decide you should have to Europe to them you’re just any other non-European country. A ridiculously obvious choice.

This makes them two

Not to be outdone, the Pullicino sitting on the other side of the House joins the fray:

Human trafficking is rife in all its forms. It is so rife that illegal immigrants from Africa are arriving in their hundreds, supposedly crossing turbulent seas in uncovered boats even during these gusty winter months! This is not to mention the hundreds of other immigrants who become illegal once they outstay their visas. These unfortunate brethren of ours are then either scuttled to one of the cage camps in my district, or if they manage to escape, live the undignified life of modern slavery.

Love that “in my district”. Maybe it’s a hint for some of that burden shoving of “unfortunate brethren” we call “burden sharing”. I’m pretty sure Marlene Pullicino’s would especially not mind having the detention centres moved out of her little fief to her ex-husband’s districts.

Meanwhile the other Pullicino also wrote in today explaining further his theory of how we should emulate the US:

The US sends these immigrants back to their country of origin. We would be directing them towards a country in which many have been living as immigrants for a number of years, working to earn enough money for the shuttle service that is being organised from Libya into Europe practically unchecked by the Libyan authorities. Few of the illegal immigrants are Libyans.

Er, and what if, short of the immigrants “re-directing” towards Malta, the Libyans don’t want to play ball? Don’t discount a repeat of the 1980 Saipem-II incident and in the absence of rule of law (the burden of which we had thought we had conveniently brushed away) expect the party with the superior firepower (i.e Libya) to have its way.

We expect the European community and, yes, the United Nations to tackle this problem seriously and not to base itself on conventions that are outdated and which were drawn up when the phenomenon of irregular migration was totally different to what it is today, conventions that were drawn up to handle the situation bona fide refugees find themselves in.

[...]

I will not deign to answer those who brought up matters that are completely unrelated to the issue in their efforts to shut me up. Even the most naïve of observers must realise what their motives are.

Pullicino-Orlando had expressed himself differently on “outdated” conventions. But that was 2007 which does feel long ago, when the MP was on his way to a cabinet post and looking good with future counterparts mattered as much as looking good with constituents. As to the efforts to shut him up — call me naive — but who could it be? Tony Abela looking to get back his old seat?

How burden sharing works

Here’s Muscat’s yardstick for judging the effectiveness of burden sharing (translation mine):

I remind the Government that it did not take Labour’s advice to hold fast with regards to the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum. Now we’ll see how many immigrants from Malta will be sent thanks to this pact. If every European country takes 300 immigrants then the Pact would have given results. If not, Government would have to answer for it.

By “holding fast”, by the way, Muscat meant vetoing the pact. Which would also have meant a veto for the creation of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) which Muscat some days ago claimed to have been a bright idea Louis Grech had before everyone else.

Credit to Jacques for having come up with “Maltese relativism” (although the mentality has an older name with a wider currency: egocentricity). Very often the claim is that Malta is carrying a heavier burden than other EU states when it comes to immigration based on its size or its population (the mathematics is not necessarily correct and then there are other criteria based on which one can legitimately conclude that Malta is not carrying the heaviest load). And that other EU states, which presumably as not as burdened, are obliged to help out.

All Muscat cares for is that some sort of mathematics and or criteria get the immigrants out of Malta. Once that’s done he’s not concerned if the burden then gets shared unequally: tiny Luxembourg gets 300 as spacious Sweden, crowded Netherlands as much as sparsely populated Finland.

Now that might sell with the patriots with a caps lock problem commenting at the Times. But there are 26 countries in the EU who can play at the same game. What if it is found that, say, Italy received more immigrants than it should and that these should be distributed amongst all the other 26 equally? That, it seems, did not cross Muscat’s mind.

As if combining work and family were easy

Anyone remembers Mgr Joseph Mercieca? Just about perhaps. Which is telling considering that the man led the Maltese Church for close to three decades.

One of Mgr Mercieca’s pet topics was working mothers. Now, he never really complained about the tendency but even he knew a thing or two about incentives. One way of penalising this category of woman who pays tax, national insurance and probably still has as much housework as her stay-at-home counterpart was to suggest paying an allowance to the mother who chose to stay at home. Not that the latter do not provide a service but paying for that should be the direct beneficiary who has an income: the husband. Not society at large.

Much of the same was on offer on a recent seminar, the only difference that the previous propositions are now couched as questions (translation mine):

[Archbishop Paul Cremona] queried how free is the choice of a woman to work and if, perhaps, it is not time that housewives are compensated by the Government for the work they do. He explained that it should be stated that housework gives its own contribution.

“It was said that the number of Maltese women who work is 37%. This means that 63% decided to stay at home and we cannot, if we’re talking about family and work and the relationship between them, not to remember these 63% like they never existed. We have to say: the choice that’s being made — which is free and I will not interfere. Is it free when no one is probably thinking of the person who, initially had a career, work which with great sacrifice she gave up because that’s what she decided? But then shouldn’t we also recognise that that’s a contribution that woman is giving? Meaning that if you stay at home to take care of your family, you will have no remuneration, if you go to work you’ll have this money. We pose it as a question”.

Check out the views of Maria Camilleri, headmistress and Labour MEP candidate, on longer school hours. She seems to have been the only one who had anything sensible to say (certainly not Anton Gouder and whatever he meant to say about school tuck shops).

More on “towing them out”

Ranier Fsadni has written on Pullicino-Orlando’s “We’re full” article. Fsadni mentions the Pullicino-Orlando of 2007 who criticised politicians who hinted at suspending Malta’s international obligations and lamented the creation of a far right Party. All the while expressing “respect for the immigrants who come to our country”. Here’s how Fsadni describes it:

In short, his attempt to save us from rising xenophobia sounds rather like the attempt by US generals to save Vietnamese villages from communism: to save the village, it was once notoriously declared, it was necessary to destroy it.

There are other points of interest in the article. One is about other countries which practice what Pullicino-Orlando suggested:

Call it the pariah strategy: That is how the international community will treat us. It is how it is treating Thailand, the only state that tows immigrants back into international waters.

Not even Australia’s right-wing populist, John Howard, attempted it. The closest he got was refusing to accept a ship into Australia’s harbours. But what a difference: He was not towing people out and it was a ship not a fragile boat.

And something about the numbers (which I promised to write about):

Indeed, one of the most puzzling aspects of his [Pullicino-Orlando's] article is its estrangement from many facts. Dr Pullicino Orlando wagers that the UK, France and Germany would each declare a state of emergency (and presumably suspend their international obligations) if faced with a proportionate number of immigrants.

There is no need to speculate. Germany has been there already. In 1992, it had 440,000 requests for asylum (way above Malta’s proportionate number) and no help from its European partners. No state of emergency was declared.

And for someone keen to face the facts, Dr Pullicino Orlando does a strange thing: He inflates the figures.

He blows up the numbers France and the UK would proportionately get, by some 30 per cent and, in counting the immigrants to Malta over a five-year period, he counts the arrivals and not the net number that is still here.

There were very little said from the usual crowd that hangs around the Times‘ comments sections. Tellingly, I’d say.

Kunserva tat-three hills

Jacques’s blog is back: new feel, new look … and the same old formula. Guess what, the rumblings on the backbench can be summarised into four letters. And Pullicino-Orlando is not to blame, Jacques tells us: the MP is some sort of MLPN construct, who came from nowhere to clinch his seat and is now fighting for his political survival, in a manner he is not morally responsible for. All this thanks to Joe Saliba who, presumably, left Nationalist voters with no choice other than to vote for id-dentist.

That is Jacques’ reaction to a parliamentarian who suggests breaking international law, a matter that’s made more outrageous by positions he took less than two years ago. That’s not unusual on Jacques’ part. As anyone who has been following his blog for some time knows the man has only very few opinions about anything. One looms large, the one he applies as a former colleague of mine would say, like a man with a hammer to whom every problem is a nail.

He gives the impression his meme explains what happened. Not that he foresaw Pullicino-Orlando’s latest foray into National Action territory but then it could have been that his cartoonist ran out of dwarfs when he we was to draw in the characters for member of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly and the “We’re full” character who took the stage recently. Rather than the seven dwarfs Bertu! should have worked on the nine muses.

One, of course, can’t blame Jacques for not being able to foresee the future a year ago. Happens to the best of us. But he did manage to come up with a prediction last month that turned out to be true. Here’s him writing on how the immigration issue could feature in the EP election:

Maltese candidates tend to tow the party line on this matter. So far neither of the two behemoths that squat the limelight of Maltese politics have produced satisfactory conclusions – whether you see this from the perspective of humanitarian NGOs or of far right loonies proposing to shoot immigrants on sight and turn them back to their shores

On the one hand the topic of illegal immigration might not be that much of a priority when it comes to choosing Malta’ next MEPs (5 in all). On the other hand it does serve to illustrate how unrepresentative the candidates can really be when they are stuck to an incompetent, opportunistic party line that does not seem to go much farther than blaming the elements.

When I read it for the first time I though: and how would someone who does not tow the “incompetent” and “opportunistic” party line on this matter be truly representative by not blaming the elements? Well, I got the answer and finally I can see what Jacques had in mind: Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando this week.

Out of wedlock

Whoever runs the Times webpage is a smart guy. The news story was headlined “30% of births in 2006 were outside wedlock” and he put a picture of a dictionary page opened on the page for “divorce” with a wedding ring about it. The report was about a presentation made by Dr Angela Abela to Parliament’s Committee on Social Affairs and nobody on that committee asked the billion dollar question: “how many of those births were to couples who would have wanted to be married but are not allowed to because they’re previously married to other people?”.

Instead we got more of the same:

The members of the committee agreed with Dr Abela on the need for education aimed at healthy relationships. Dr Abela said such education should start in schools. Indeed, she said, research indicated that young people wanted to learn more on how to start, maintain, or end a relationship. Many young people, she said, drank heavily to overcome their fear of starting a relationship.

The committee members need some education to get over stating the obvious. Here’s more:

Dr Abela expressed concern over a growing number of reports of casual sex which stemmed from excessive drinking.

And it had also been found that 21% of young people made dates with persons then came across on the Internet.

While failing to see what’s the big deal about people making dates with persons they meet online here’s another question the committee could have asked: is “casual sex” synonymous with “unprotected sex”?

Thankfully, sometimes sensible things are said:

Dr Abela underlined the need for a proper work-family balance. Mothers needed to be given enough time to raise their children, with their fathers. This showed the need for more family-friendly measures, not least in the private sector, which was lagging the public sector in this area.

She noted that while the European average of maternity leave is 23 weeks, in Malta it was 13 weeks.

The statistics is not entirely spotless. The report earlier says that 54% of Maltese mothers go back to work within six months (circa 23 weeks) of giving birth. Which makes it something of a mystery how the Maltese average eventually works out to 13 weeks.

Update: Abela clarifies:

I had pointed out to the Social Affairs Committee that the statistics regarding births outside marriage were inaccurate. In fact, births outside marriage in 2006 were 22.3 per cent and not 30 per cent. In 2007, the rate of births outside marriage went up to 24.9 per cent. I would also like to clarify that during my presentation to the committee, I referred to a study carried out by the NSO in 2005 regarding students between 13 and 16 years of age when I mentioned that 21 per cent of these youngsters fixed meetings with persons they came to know by chatting on the internet.

Arrigo and his “gazz”

Robert Arrigo has no reason to feel disappointed. First, as Daphne points out, ministers serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. Secondly, Gonzi wanted a smaller cabinet and, consequently, “left out” a few people. That included not only Arrigo but politicians with long cabinet experience — something which Arrigo does not have.

He should just hold there patiently and not fall for the temptation of making a “brazen attempt at gaining cheap political points by riding on the wave of popular concern”. Arrigo is not fighting for dear political life; he’s not in the situation as the would-have-been-never-will-be Pullicino-Orlando.

And Arrigo is popular without trying too hard: he does not need to write letters like the one he wrote in today’s Times. After all, if the man has ministerial ambitions he’ll have to deal with foreign counterparts who might not look too favourably on his “one nation” proposals. Pullicino-Orlando, whose international hobnobbing career is definitely behind him, can afford to throw caution and his expressed opinions honed to suit the Council of Europe to the wind. Arrigo can’t.

One other point Arrigo makes which only Fausto Majistral would bother to answer:

Arrigo, for a long time President of Sliema Wanderers, enjoys the trust even of people known to support Labour. How does he view this?

“Where my votes come from vary. The information given to me by the Party is that I had hundreds of voters who gave me their first preference and stopped there. And there were a considerable number who gave me their first preference and the second preference to the Labour Party.”

The way elections went in Arrigo’s districts do not shed much light. Arrigo was elected in the last count without a quota on the Ninth (definitely not a case of “elett sparat” as Julia Farrugia decribes it) and when his surplus came to be distributed at the 20th count of the Tenth District none of it could be “inherited” by the Labour candidates because by that count they had either been elected or eliminated. But none of the surplus was “non-transferable”; it all went to the Nationalist candidates who were still in the race.

Now that is not foolproof but a strong indication. The amount of votes that moves as surplus is, in actual fact, a mathematical construct arrived at by examining all the ballots in the candidate’s pigeon hole at that time. Meaning that that one would be fairly accurate in saying that if, indeed, in the Tenth voters gave their first preference to Arrigo and stopped there becuase they liked him more than they like his Party there were very few of them

I’ll reiterate: he’s a popular politician. But his political value is probably less than he’d like to think it is.

Horror Vacui

It’s a weekly but it seems they still have a problem filling up inch space. Here are some choice stories carried in the latest edition of Illum:

• A traditional “king” in Ghana who will be made Knight with St John of Jerusalem Hospitallers Ecumenical Order coming Saturday at Castello dei Baroni in Wardija
• No condom dispensing machine at the University
• The Malta Government Gazzette will keep on selling at the same price despite being printed on recycled paper
• No less than 866 Maltese car number plates sport the “007″ digits

Truly cutting edge stuff.

Pullicino-Orlando consults an atlas

Watch this interview of Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando by Times journalist Kurt Sansone. An excerpt (translation mine):

When one says that these people are coming to Malta because they’re escaping from persecution and terror one wouldn’t right. If one were to take a look at the nationalities of the people coming here many of them — it appears to me — are from Somalia. Now the last time I checked, Kurt, between Somalia and Malta there were three countries: Libya, Ethiopia and Sudan. One cannot say that these people escaped in despair, they had nowhere to go and so they came to our country, in a desperate act in reaction to terror or persecution they were subject to.

Three countries stood between Somalia and Malta last time Pullicino-Orlando checked, I wonder if it was the same number the first time he checked. That was probably a long before he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe when he’d call “talk of suspending human rights considerations to tackle the issue” as a “brazen attempt at gaining cheap political points by riding on the wave of popular concern”.

If you’re looking out for something brazen here’s how the MP describes the reasons why the solution is to put landed immigrants on a boat and tow them into international waters: “we cannot take them care of them as we should, we cannot accommodate them as we should, even out of respect for the immigrants coming to our country”.

When he “chose to publicly condemn those politicians who try to gain a few cheap points by making racist remarks” in far off 2007 Pullicino-Orlando said he received “an insulting and anonymous e-mail”. He’ll have to fear no unfair affront now because his newly-found views are, as he tells us, “reflecting the thoughts and concerns of the Maltese”. Must be reassuring to someone who, until very recently, was fighting for his political life.

Closure? Hardly

Looks after having been on the offensive for a long time the FAA is now having to fight a rearguard battle:

“It is surprising that certain people can’t come to terms with the fact that this case is now closed and prefer to indulge in disparaging remarks and nit-picking. FAA calls for an end to this assault on the public’s democratic and EU rights to participate in the decision-making process of our land and calls for the focus to be directed toward more positive initiatives,” the FAA said.

Case closed? The FAA wasn’t giving that impression and I’m not referring to the details of what FAA members are up to particularly when they’re tending to their business interests rather than campaigning. When the PM announced that the project would be withdrawn FAA was not satisfied:

In a statement, the FAA called for the resignation of the members of St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation.

It said the project had been ‘concealed’ from the public for two years in what could be considered a serious breach of ethics in a project concerning a scheduled public monument.

Furthermore the foundation allowed this application to be processed and it obtained EU funding for the project in full knowledge that the government was carrying out re-paving of Merchants’ Street , costing hundreds of thousands of euro of public funds, which works would have been destroyed by the St John’s project.

The NGO also hit out at the foundation members for pressing on with the project in spite of being aware of many expert reports highlighting the grave risks of the project, including the MEPA Directorate declaration that “The project is a non-starter due to the fact that no mitigation measures can guarantee that the Cathedral’s foundations will not be affected”.

FAA said it expected the government to request the resignation of its representatives on the foundation as this was a matter of mismanagement of Malta’s prime heritage asset and also of public funds.

There are quite a few weasel words in there like “could” and “would” and claims of “mismanagement” over a project that never was. But those were sturdy foundation on which to place a demand that the foundation members resign. As far as I know they are still there — quite rightly — and the FAA is saying that case is closed?

Not to worry. The FAA may be an avowed “non-political” organisation but Labour is already claiming not only the pound of flesh it is owed but also the pint of blood. Credit rates may be low but there’s interest to be paid. Joseph Muscat has threatened to out two Ministers who disagreed with the project:

Two ministers had made serious accusations regarding the manner of how funds were going to be granted for the St John’s Co-Cathedral project during a high Nationalist Party meeting, Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat said.

Dr Muscat had previously referred to these persons as “holding a high institutional position” who had indicated that EU funds were allocated following “undue pressure and because some people knew the rules of the game well”.

Dr Muscat was speaking at a Labour Party activity at Villa Bighi, Kalkara yesterday.

While encouraging the two ministers to speak up, he said that the PN had already attempted to find out how such sensitive information made it to PL. Dr Muscat said he was ready to name these persons if they did not do so.

Which is, of course, hardly what the FAA would want government insiders not wanting to take a stand against government proposals even at meetings they think are confidential. No, closure it isn’t. It’s more like he who sows the wind reaps the storm.

A weekend of bright ideas (Part 4)

It’s already Tuesday but still they come. There’s Gavin Gulia, presently Labour spokesman on the self-employed, who reminded us that — hey! he was there too! — and that he convered the “interior” for many years (before he lost it to someone who flounted his knowledge of another interior: Alfred Sant’s guts).

More interestingly there’s Leo Brincat who, like his leader, has “discovered” the word “omertà“. Brincat tells us that it would “gratuitous and irresponsible stand to try and conclude that Joseph [Muscat] is merely riding the wave and trying to resort to cheap populism on this issue”. And silly me thought that the Labour had chosen to refer to the situation with a Sicilian word instead of “silence” because of its mafia associations and criminal collusion.

Then there’s the list of “harsh truths” from which we are supposedly “shutting ourselves” from. One of these, the claim that “the annual influx is well exceeding our official national annual birth rate” has been shown to be wrong. Another:

The apparent lack of political goodwill of other EU states who have responded tepidly to our request for the introduction of burden sharing which has now been watered down to our government’s acceptance of a merely voluntary scheme

The “watered down” request made it to the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum which Muscat had said the government should veto. Not only it wouldn’t have won us much “political goodwill”, we would have lost the opportunity offered with the creation of the European Asylum Support Office which now Muscat is claiming to have been a bright idea of Louis Grech all along.

And someday I should really find the time to write about this “burden sharing” thing and the assumption that it would be to Malta’s advantage. Just think about this: if “burden” is considered as the number of immigrant job seekers a national job market has to take who should take the “burden” of a new arrival if it is to be shared around: Germany (unemployment 7.2%) or Malta (unemployment 5.7%)? Just because we think that the highest population density makes us the most burdened, if the mechanism were mandatory it’s far from being a foregone conclusion.

Another “harsh truth” is that under Dublin II immigrants can only apply for asylum in the first country they enter. I’m mystified at those who claim that Dublin II is the source of Malta’s woes. What would happen if this convention was not in place? Would we ask immigrants which country they would like to head to, send them there and expect that country not to say or do anything? What if the immigrants, like the most recent arrivals, want to stay in Malta? My impression is that, in effect, Dublin II did little more than codify the situation on the ground.

There are other “harsh truths”, one deals with the over-expectation of what Frontex would do and could do, another with claims from the army (“often gone on record”) that the camps are at breaking point. There is also a reference to a recent case of an immigrant who was given humanitarian protection who was charged with cocaine trafficking which case “not only straining our social fabric but also our internal security and public order”. Now that’s remarkable that it attracts more attention from a senior Labour MP than Bastjan Dalli’s indictment over a similar charge, albeit more serious.

But the “harsh truth” that I found most amusing was that “ironically the country which has supported us most is a major non-EU country – the United States of America”. Not that it is not true but the “harshness” is truly lost on me. Maybe we should quit the EU and apply to become the US’ 51st state?

A weekend of bright ideas (Part 3)

And if you thought that a weekend of considerable brain activity was limited to National Action and Labour and tripping over previous actions, think again. Here’s Nationalist MP  Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando in today’s Times:

I feel it’s about time we took a stand. It’s about time we acknowledged the fact that the problem is getting out of hand. None of the illegal immigrants who end up on our island come here directly from their country.

They usually come to Malta via a transit country, which is usually Libya. Thus, the argument that these migrants are coming here to escape persecution or terror in their own countries does not hold water. There is an obviously organised effort to shuttle these people into Europe.

I suggest that they should be treated in the same way as we would treat any other visitor who does not have the proper documentation and is trying to gain entry into our islands illegally. Send them back.

If they are in distress at sea we should help them out. Any arrivals on our island should be treated with the utmost courtesy. But, when the weather is fair and at the earliest opportunity, they should be towed back into international waters in the direction they came from. Every consideration must be taken to ensure their safety but we cannot be expected to shoulder a responsibility that is physically impossible for us to bear.

I must say I was suprised. Pullicino-Orlando was not only a member of the Maltese delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for some ten years, he was not only the head of that delegation, he was also the Assembly’s Vice-President. In those days (circa 2007) he’d write things like this:

The human factor of this phenomenon should never be ignored. A number of these migrants are genuinely escaping war and persecution in their country. Talk of suspending human rights considerations to tackle the issue should be dismissed as a brazen attempt at gaining cheap political points by riding on the wave of popular concern.

The Council of Europe is the depository and custodian institution of many conventions and treaties which Pullicino-Orlando once lauded and is now proposing to rip up. Had he made his views known earlier he wouldn’t have been elected to the post of the Assembly’s bell boy let alone its Vice-President.

A weekend of bright ideas (Part 2)

Meanwhile, Labour’s not being outdone by political rivals:

With reference to the present illegal migration situation Dr [Joseph] Muscat referred to last week’s European Commission reconsideration of an idea that was proposed to the budget committee by MEP Louis Grech two years ago. Back then, Dr Grech had proposed the idea of introducing an asylum agency in Malta that screens illegal migrants while fast tracking their repatriation process. The idea was not applied, as it did not have the necessary backing of PN MEPs.

Dr Muscat called for nationalist MEPs to support the idea for the agency to open office.

Where to start from? First, pace Jacques, according to Muscat two Nationalist MEPs hold the balance of the EP’s decision-making. Wow. Second, unless Louis Grech was appointed European Commissioner without my noticing, I don’t know what say he has in the matter because it is the European Commission that has the right of initiative in this case. And, by the way, the decision on a Common European Asylum System was taken in 2004 when Grech was still a freshman MEP.

But there’s more. Here’s an extract from the Commission’s press release:

The Commission today adopted a proposal for a Regulation to establish a European Asylum Support Office. This proposal is presented under the Pact on Immigration and Asylum in response to a request by the European Council.

Isn’t that the same Pact on Immigration and Asylum Muscat had asked the PM to veto? More:

If the proposal is adopted quickly, the Office could be up and running by 2010. Its headquarters will be established in an EU Member State by decision of the Heads of State and Government.

Er, not Louis Grech with the “necessary backing of the PN MEPs”?

A weekend of bright ideas (Part 1)

So many people seem to have put on De Bono’s six thinking hats that it’s hard to think there was enough headware to go around. First, we had the proposals from National Action (rounded off to a neat ten). Here’s the highlight:

Immigrants being kept in detention centres should be forced to work for their food and lodging, Azzjoni Nazzjonali suggested in a set of proposals on illegal immigration.

“Nobody eats and drinks without working except the sick and the elderly,” party leader Josie Muscat said.

… and prison inmates. Muscat seems to have forgotten about that other important exception. The people who eat and drink at the expense of their freedom. Just like detainees in our detention camps.

There are other proposals, listed on the National Action website (you can’t say I didn’t warn you) one of which is to have the crime of human trafficking carry a life sentence and another which demands that the Maltese government commit such a crime by supplying and escorting such trips to the limit of the territorial waters of the passengers’ country of choice.

Just imagine if the Libyan navy were to do just that at the edge of Maltese territorial waters.

The force of inertia

In my last post I said that the opponents of the project to extend St John’s were greatly helped by the fact that they had the force of inertia on their side; in Malta the adherents of any “do nothing” side in whatever cause start with a significant advantage.

Think about this scenario: an NGO which is well-funded and has quite some media savvy, riding on a wave of public support, backed with a petition “signed by thousands” and has some friends (and, possibly, a majority) in the House of Representatives. This time it’s not FAA but Gift of Life (GoL) and their campaign to have the right of life from conception entrenched in the Constitution that I have in mind.

There are, admittedly, reversals which GoL’s campaign suffered that FAA’s did not. First, it was the respective organisation’s sense of timing. GoL foolishly decided to suspend their campaign first for the general election then for the summer; FAA knew that they had to throw all their weight behind their campaign sooner rather then later or they would have had to face the situation of confronting an extensive study with little more than scattered opinions, whether expert or lay.

But in everything else GoL’s campaign was not very different from FAA’s. Yet, this is where their campaign is at:

The Prime Minister remained non-committal on Gift of Life’s proposal to amend the Constitution to protect the right to life from the moment of conception, during a meeting with the organisation yesterday.

Lawrence Gonzi summarised the different arguments being made the organisation’s proposal at a meeting in Castille, where techno music from carnival celebrations below blared in the background.

He stopped short of saying whether he agreed with the constitutional amendment, insisting he did not know what the position of the MPs was. The amendment proposed by Gift of Life would require a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Dr Gonzi said the criminal code was clear enough in making abortion illegal and that the Constitution already protected the right to life.

He added that there was a debate in the country on the proposal and the path on the subject was still open.

However, the Prime Minister said the issue of when life started had to be addressed during the debate on legislation to regulate in vitro fertilisation, which will be presented during this legislature.

The press was invited for the initial part of the meeting, which continued behind closed doors.

I have no doubt that, if GoL’s proposed amendment to the Constitution were to be presented in the House, it would garner the two-thirds majority it needs easily. But it will not even get to that stage because there is no enthusiasm to get things that far. Intertia wins again. And this time I’m unequivocally happy it did.

Why not a headcount?

I had intended to publish this post some days ago but it turned out to be one of those that cannot be finalised in a single sitting. It was about the political consequences of the St John’s extension project.

I’m in no way qualified to comment on the technicalities of the project except to note that excavations under buildings of importance is not something unheard of elsewhere. Today in the Times it was a letter from architect Alex Torpiano to remind us of one such example (of what other would call a “quarry” or a “bunker”) under the Louvre.

Torpiano also makes some important remarks about the planning process, about the experts whom the FAA is so happy to quote but whose opinions were either conditional or preliminary (and, as Torpiano reminds us, their opinion, is legally, not final). I have one thing to add on the planning aspect of this story. If, as the FAA is telling us, EIAs are “flawed” by their very nature why should these in-depth studies (as opposed to opinions which arer still opinions however expert) be kept part of the planning process?

From the cultural aspect there’s the loss that these tapestries will either not be exhibited properly or in a place so far away from St John’s that their value is completely decontextualised. There are no “neighbouring palazzos” waiting for restoration (or expropriation as Wenzu Mintoff, true socialist that he is, suggested). And Kenneth Zammit-Tabona can put on all of De Bono’s six thinking hats — he might as well put on six pairs of the lateral thinker’s socks — because he will not get very far.

There are the by far more interesting (admittedly to me) political implications of this. The PM is supposed to have withdrawn the project because of the public controversy. That’s not implausible. The opposition to the project was strong for the “do nothing” scenario is always backed by inertia, the strongest force in the universe. But the PM came out of this looking like he feared that the Opposition’s motion would be carried.

I had already posted reasons why this might not happen. The Times reported three MPs who expressed reservations: Jesmond Mugliett, Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando and Ninu Zammit. In the case of Zammit the information was second hand and referred largely disruptions excavation might cause to the surroundings. In the case of Mugliett it was because he failed “to understand how it (the project) managed to get so much funding when other projects could have been more deserving” — a case of dog-in-the-manger from someone who stills has to get round the idea that you serve in cabinet at the pleasure of the PM. The only one to have substantial objections was Pullicino-Orlando and, then again, he might not have voted in favour of the motion.

The way things turned out the PM has given in to undue influence from Parliament. Alfred Mifsud — not the most politically literate commenter around — claimed that this was a case of a “desirable but rare separation between the roles of the legislative and the executive”. Rather it was the case where the legislative intruded into the workings of the executive, a matter which in the constitutional arrangement exists largely on money matters (and then, on the efficient raising and spending of that money not on what it is spent).

The legislative’s major role is making laws not deliberating on particular instances where the laws it enacts are being applied as they should. And it should be kept in mind that anarchy is not the only state of affairs that’s contrary to the rule of law; so is arbitrariness.

Talk is cheap

The House of Representatives is to hold an urgent debate on illegal immigration after a boatload of more than 200 Somalis entered Malta yesterday:

At the opening of the sitting this evening, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat called for a suspension of the agenda of the House for an urgent debate on illegal immigration.

[...]Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi disagreed with the request to hold an immediate debate. He however acknowledged that the situation was worrying.

He said the repatriation of the recent arrivals had started and the number of repatriations was higher than a neighbouring country had done.

Dr Gonzi denied that there was any institutional silence over the subject (which Dr Muscat had called omerta‘) and said this was an international humanitarian tragedy which needed to be tackled in a way which respected human dignity. The migrants were innocent victims of circumstances which the Maltese had to acknowledge. It was Parliament’s duty to make everyone understand that Malta, being a small country, expected solidarity in practice through assistance given as a human right.

Dr Gonzi disclosed that a few weeks ago, Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici had invited Dr Muscat to a meeting and had given a full explanation of the extent of the problem, in the presence of army and police officers. The meeting was cordial and positive and he could not therefore understand how the Opposition had reached its conclusions. The real challenge was the challenge to the values of the Maltese.

How very Maltese. There’s “institutional silence” on the subject and if we talked we’d be seen to be doing something about the matter. Any discussion of which will be little more than, like Canute, order the tide to stop from coming in. And rest assured it will be a very circumspect discussion: can you imagine anyone, especially Labour MPs, saying anything critical of Libya?

So let’s talk like all those commenters to the online edition of the Times have been doing. Because talk is cheap. A twinge of sympathy for Martin Degiorgio, formerly of the now-defunct Republican National Alliance (ANR), who bemoans the moaning instead of demonstrating (equally useless but requiring some more effort and commitment):

It is nice to see that there is so much concern expressed by so-called “keyboard warriors”. Pity that when I together with another group of people organised a very civilised and peaceful anti-illegal immigration protest in Valletta in October 2005 we got 2500 participants and when we did one in June 2007 we got just 250!

Unfortunately even if in this country 97.3% (according to a Sunday Times survey of August 2005) are against illegal immigration, you find thousands of people that are ready to waste their time by posting here but hardly anyone who has the spine to take part in some anti-immigration demonstration or (if he does not like what’s “on offer”) organise one himself!

No wonder I stopped bothering to organise such events and wasting my time. What for?! Such events should instead draw 20,000 people and that would put real pressure on the government, the opposition and the EU. Instead we are doing the only thing we (or I should say most of you) do – i.e. just grumble. Enjoy!

And let’s not forget that that talk offers no insight into what’s going on in the countries these people are coming from or passing through or the reason why they take the risk and leave. No, it’s just a way of venting frustrations.

Playing Plutarch

Remember Saviour Balzan’s comparison of Richard Cachia-Caruana to Cardinal Richelieu? It did not require much insight to come up with something so hackneyed but just to make sure there was not much that was original the MaltaToday editor went on to explain who the historical éminence rouge was (whom he obviously can’t tell from the éminence grise) by plagiarising from the Wikipedia article on Cardinal Richelieu.

Recently, Balzan’s paper made the truly astounding “revelation” that Cachia-Caruana will be Malta’s nominee for the next European Commissioner. To which the PM is supposed to have reacted by saying “I’m the government; I make the decisions around here” when the more appropriate reaction would have been “Playing safe this time, aren’t we?”.

The PM’s reaction drew Balzan, once more, to making historical comparisons:

Louis XIV, baptised as Louis-Dieudonné – ‘Louis God-given’ – ruled as King of France. Louis XIV is popularly known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil) because he was the source of light for his people and for Europe’s nobles and rulers. As a result, he was commonly associated with Apollo, the Greco-Roman god of the Sun. Louis believed in the Divine Right of Kings.

Which, unsurprisingly enough, was lifted from the Wikipedia article on Louis XIV:

Louis XIV is popularly known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil) because he was the source of light for his people and for Europe’s nobles and rulers. As a result, he was commonly associated with Apollo Helios, the Greco-Roman god of the Sun. Louis believed in the Divine Right of Kings, a theory which received one of its most classic expressions in “On the Duties of Kings”, a sermon preached by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet in Louis’ presence in 1662. (Louis was so impressed with Bossuet that in 1670, he appointed Bossuet as tutor to Louis’ son and heir.)

And while this time Balzan wisely leaves out details which would have given the game away, it was not to be the case with Leo Brincat:

The moment his [the PM's] statement hit the air waves I was inundated by text messages from friends who told me that in acting this way it seemed that our Prime Minister was trying to emulate Louis XIV of France, who is popularly known as the Sun King – Le Roi Soleil, because he was the source of ‘light’ for his people and for Europe’s nobles and rulers. As a result he was also commonly associated with Apollo Helios, the Greco-Roman god of the Sun.

The Sun King who will be remembered throughout the years for his famous quote: L’etat c’est moi – meaning that he and the state were the one and only thing, literally believed in the Divine Right of Kings, a theory which received one of its most classic expressions in ‘On the Duties of Kings’ a sermon preached by Jacques-Benigne Bosssuet in Louis’ presence in 1662.

Folks, plagiarism is bad enough. Do not make other out to be so dumb as not to know of Wikipedia. And give your clichéd historical comparisons a break: you’re no Plutarch.

Malta’s way to recovery

“Where’s Gonzi’s recovery plan?” James Debono asks. By which he means a plan to splash around some government cash so that the industry which moans loudest gets some dosh. After all, min ma jibkix, ma jerdax.

I hope Gonzi has no such plan and for a very simple reason. Malta’s economic problems are nothing like those of most industrialised nations. Maltese banks may be going through a sluggish phase, representative of the international climate in general. But they certainly have none of the liquidity problems faced by other banks in other countries. The recent decision brokered by the government setting up a moratorium on capital repayments on loans taken out by hotels shows that our banks can shoulder even that cost.

Debono’s suggestions could very well turn out to be at best useless, at worst suicidal. Under “useless” I would include his proposal to “invest” in primary health and child care and in upgrading the road network — not that these are not laudable initiatives to spend money on but they are hardly the kind of “investment” that leads to recovery. Under “suicidal” I’d include the proposal for a windfall tax on banks precisely at a time when the banks’ liquidity has to be safeguarded.

Which is not to say that the government should not be doing anything. At the moment, the greatest economic risk Malta faces could very well be the fall in international demand. Like illegal immigration that’s a cause that’s beyond Malta’s borders but on this one the Maltese government does have some leverage.

What I mean is that now’s the time for the government to come out unequivocally on the side of free trade internationally, the rule of competition in the internal market and fiscal discipline within the eurozone. It is time to stand up to measures attached to “recovery plans”  launched by the larger economies attempting to draw jobs and liquidity to the country of origin.

For protectionism is back from the dead and that’s bad news from a small, export-oriented country like Malta. If we try to play at the same game we’d lose: just remember who came out looking worse for wear when the Labour government in the 1980s tried to “retaliate” against Japanese protectionist policies by some similar policies of its own.

Getting your history right

You now that when the people at MaltaToday venture into history they get things wrong:

The foundation managing the Co-Cathedral is itself an outdated creature born out of a funny compromise between the government and the Church over the unsolved dispute of who owns this majestic building. In our eyes, there is no question about it: the Knights were the effective government of the country when they built it, hence it is the government which should manage it, primarily as a museum of global heritage importance more than anything else.

Isn’t James Debono an historian? He should tell his colleagues that, during his brief stay in Malta, Napoleon, as the head of the effective government of the country, transferred the ownership of St John’s to the Maltese Church. If there is indeed “no question” it’s because the Maltese Church is the undisputed owner of the Co-Cathedral.

I smell egg

There are more details in today’s Times report on the vote-buying case:

The employees, Kristylee Bezzina and Anthony Zammit, a man with a colourful criminal record who also goes by the nickname Is-Sej, said that Pierre Bartolo, 44, had told them that they would lose their jobs if they voted for the Labour Party (PL).

Mr Zammit took his allegations to PL deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia who included them in a report he compiled, listing between 100 and 200 people that said they were paid to vote for the PN. The report was presented to the Commissioner of Police but only Mr Bartolo has been charged so far.

[...]

Dr Giglio [the defence lawyer] also queried Mr Zammit’s credibility, pointing out that he had been fired shortly after the election when about €12,000 went missing from the canteen. The lawyer asked the officer whether the police had looked into this, raising the possibility that Mr Zammit could be cooking up a story because he was fired for legitimate reasons.

Of course, this will take time. It will be wasted time and wasted time is wasted taxpayers’ money. But if the end result will be egg all over Anglu Farrugia’s face it would have been worth every cent. I mean, imagine the yolk in that moustache.

Another one bites the dust

Anyone remember Rene Rossignaud the politician? He was Green Party councillor in Swieqi. During the campaign in the last election he resigned, saying that he couldn’t stand it seeing his Party seeking only to siphon off votes from the Nationalists. He described the Green Party as an “instrument which which to whip Lawrence Gonzi”. Ho, hum, the Green replied: the Nationalists piled pressure on Rossignaud and he caved in. “Intimidazzjoni skifuza” the Green PRO described it.

There was another Green councillor who was subjected Nationalist “intimidation” … the PM invited him for lunch. Here’s Harry Vassallo, the former Green Party Chair, ranting about the “regime”:

“Alternattiva Demokratika elected officials working in the private sector are not immune from pressure either” Dr Vassallo said. “It is a measure of the minute detail in which the regime operates that soon after election to the Sannat Local Council, AD Councillor John Mizzi, was invited to dine with the Prime Minister who did not bother to arrange such a meeting through proper channels. John Mizzi correctly advised me of the invitation and I encouraged him to attend in order to make a firsthand experience of the quality of politics as practiced by the regime. He was not impressed.

[...]

“When the Prime Minister attempts to make furtive meetings with our local councilors, we take it as a measure of the panic and desperation which has gripped the Nationalist government, its detachment from its principles and from political reality. We take such actions to be a measure of the need for a new, clean way of doing politics which can only be achieved by the election of Alternattiva Demokratika deputies to parliament and their participation in government,” Dr Vassallo said.

Vassallo later went on to compare the government to the Burmese miliary dictatorship (that’s right, for inviting someone to lunch) and his Party to the Burmese democratic opposition.

Well, John Mizzi has broken ranks. But he’s not headed towards the Nationalists:

The first and only local councillor elected on Alternattiva Demokratika’s ticket in Gozo has defected to the Labour Party.

John Mizzi, who has represented AD on the Sannat council for the past three years, will be contesting June’s local elections with Labour instead.

Mr Mizzi said the move was motivated by what he described as Labour’s newfound environmental conscience under Joseph Muscat.

Having been vociferous against the proposed development at Ta’ Ċenċ, which included a golf course, Mr Mizzi is not deterred by Labour’s previous stand in favour of a stand-alone golf course.

Local councillors elected in the name of the Green Party have now dwindled to two: Ralph Cassar in Attard and Mike Briguglio in Sliema. John Mizzi’s defection is significant. Three years ago when he was elected the Green Party made much fuss. He was, after all, their first councillor in Gozo. Little did they notice that they had lost their council seats in Birkirkara and Lija, urban centres which are far more significant politically than Sannat. Instead, they chose to be in denial, buying into their Chair’s tall tales about regimes and military dictatorships.

Buying votes

The case against the Swieqi entrepreneur Pierre Bartolo, who allegedly threatened two employees last general election if they didn’t vote Nationalist, started being heard today.

Here are the juicy highlights. First to testify was Labour Deputy Leader Anglu Farrugia who said, Anthony Zammit, one of the employees told him of the threats, told him that he was offered €200 (which is illegal), told him was taken to the polling station, told him that he had to take a photo of the ballot with his mobile phone (which is also illegal) and that he was still fired. Farrugia’s is therefore all second hand information — hearsay — and should be dismissed as little more than turning the witness stand into a political podium.

The second employee, Kristylee Bezzina, also testified. She said that she had been an employee of Bartolo’s he told her to vote Nationalist (which is not illegal). While being cross-examined Bezzina told the court that she voted Nationalist but that’s what she intended to do all along.

So this case stands on the evidence of a man who was was fired for … well, what for? Didn’t he say he voted Nationalist, if under duress? Didn’t the Nationalists win the election? In lieu of other evidence, a different theory is more plausible: this is an instance where an employee is regularly and legally fired and, post-hoc, he comes with dubious reasons why his employer did that.

WWMD?

What would Marx do?

I don’t know much about Karm Farrugia except that, along with Edward Scicluna, he’s often the second leg MaltaToday stands on when it decides to talk about economics. Recently, he was involved in an exchange of letters in the Times. It all started off with this letter of his:

Prophetic economists and world leaders

Karm Farrugia, Madliena

Exactly 175 years ago, Thomas Malthus (England) prophesied that since population tended to increase faster than the means of subsistence, its increase should be checked, mainly by moral means. Science and technology proved Malthus wrong, at least in advanced economies.

Nearly 150 years ago, in 1867, Karl Marx (Germany) had this to say: “Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the state will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.” Even Nostradamus couldn’t have said it better!

Thank heavens the world is led by the likes of Obama and Brown.

How Malthus and Marx could have led Farrugia to thank heavens for Obama and Brown is beyond me but it was easy to see that this was just name-dropping. Until someone asked Farrugia to source the Marx quote. “It featured in one of Marx’ editorials in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung,” the economist replied. In which case it wouldn’t have been 1867, as Farrugia claimed earlier, because that paper was published between 1848 and 1849.

If only that were the only shortcoming. A commenter on the online version version of the Times claims that the quote was fake, a hoax created during the present hunch which is doing the rounds on the internet. Which shouldn’t surprise us: Marx is not exactly well known for making correct predictions.

But Farrugia’s final reaction was hilarious:

Marx or not, bankers should be warned

Karm Farrugia, Madliena

Maybe Joseph A. Debono (February 6) is right in suspecting the Marx quotation to be fake. I did that, too, but decided to consult my student notes on economic theory: the spirit of the quote is indeed there, even if the translation into English is too liberal or even bad.

The lecturer intend to warn capitalists not to exaggerate their economic muscle. This was the 1950s, when the fear of communism was very real, especially in a global scenario exhibiting the “ugly face of capitalism”, an expression then commonly used by writers and politicians. My notes even make reference to a song called Sixteen Tons which ended with

“I owe my soul to the company’s store”.

Rather than wasting time on whether Karl Marx did or did not write in this vein (he inspired it, though), it is much better to employ it as a warning to the so-called “bankers” who have managed to give the profession such a bad name, and invite the genuine ones (the majority) to regulate themselves seriously before harsher impositions from national and/or international authorities become imperative.

There goes all the name-dropping. Marx may not have been big on predictions but a round of applause to Farrugia’s economic theory lecturer who, in the 1950s, predicted an internet hoaxes including its precise wording.

Muscat or Hubner?

It looks like it’s evolving into a meme for Labour’s EP election campaign. It goes something like this: the Nationalists got you into Europe but we know how it works and we’ll make it work better for Malta.

Here’s it being restated by Muscat:

Malta was ending up being a net contributor to the EU giving more than it was receiving in the past two years, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking during a meeting for Labour Party supporters, Dr Muscat said that according to financial estimates, Malta only managed to get €47 million from the €163 million it had been entitled to in 2007. On the other hand, it contributed €53 million.

And although figures for last year had not yet been concluded, the government had said it would get €114 million and until November it had only managed to get €25 million.

It comes hot on the heels of another piece of news some days ago:

Malta has emerged as one of the best performers in the management of EU funds, absorbing 91 per cent of its budget for 2000-2006, which totalled €88.7 million.

The island outperformed all the other member states that joined the EU in 2004 and managed to do better than some of the older member states such as Spain, Greece, France and Italy, which have decades of experience in managing EU-funded projects.

The details emerged in Brussels yesterday as Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner gave figures on how the 27 member states are managing their funding allocations.

You’d think that this is a case of someone being right and someone being wrong. Muscat or Hubner. Actually, it looks more like a case of someone being informed and someone being misinformed:

According to EU rules, member states have until mid-2009 to receive payments related to the structural fund budget of 2000-2006, covering four separate financial programmes, and until the end of next year to get cohesion fund payments, normally related to highly intensive infrastructural projects.

Last year, Malta received about €50 million from EU coffers for various ongoing projects covering budgetary periods 2000-2006 and 2007-2013.

Or another possibility: someone’s taking liberty with the facts for political ends. Considering that Danuta Hubner does not stand to gain (or lose) from the outcome of any election held in Malta — whether local, general or European — that does not leave much doubt on who is more credible of the two.

The real question

Looks like Labour has discovered not only the terms “progressive”, “moderate” and “liberal” which it uses to describe itself (while “democratic socialist”, the only such description of the party in its statute, is nowhere to be seen) but also “conservative” and “rightist”. It is still to discover the meanings of those terms but they come handy as political shorthand of the “four legs good, two legs bad” type.

Take the Party’s recent description of the Nationalist Party as having a “conservative and rightist identity”. The whole thing started with the EP vote on a motion welcoming the new US Administration’s decision to close Guantánamo. So far, so good. One particular paragraph of that motion “call[s] on the Member States to be prepared to accept Guantánamo inmates in the EU in case the US asks so” which inmates would almost certainly face persecution in the home countries if they were returned there once released.

The three Labour MEPs voted in favour of the motion in its entirety; the Nationalists voted in favour of the motion but against this particular paragraph because, they said, these decisions should be left to individual countries. That, presumably makes them, “conservative and rightist”.

James Debono, whose political vocabulary is richer than whoever’s pens the press releases at Mile End, notes that a good chunk of the European People’s Party voted for the entire motion and only goes as far as describing the Nationalist MEPs as “insular”. That good very well be but James, whose judgment tends to get clouded when evaluating players with political baggage similar to his, should note that same monicker can be said of the Labour MEPs. And more, for that matter, much more can be said.

Labour’s reaction was that of someone who feels cornered. They could have answered the obvious question to the call made in their motion, which is “including Malta?”. Had it been “yes” imagine the furore it would have caused, coming from the Party that last year would have been ready to sabotage the Council Presidency’s conclusions just because the burden-sharing mechanism it referred to was voluntary not mandatory.

But, more probably, it would have been a “no”. So effectively, Messers Attard-Montalto, Grech and Bedingfield called on the governments of twenty-six member states to be ready to take Guantánamo inmates but probably not their own.

Calling that “insular” would be correct but not do full justice to that attitude. Think of it: asking for others to adhere to high moral standards which you don’t live up to yourself … there’s a name for that. It’s not “conservative”, nor “liberal”, neither “right-wing” nor “left-wing”. It’s called “hypocrisy”.

090509

In case you were wondering what’s 090509 it’s the date of the next Europe Day and a UHM website whose intention is to:

bring together nine persons representing civil society, who will present their views on nine issues of local and European interest. 090509.org will become a forum for these issues, and will invite reactions from the general public. The issues chosen are likely to be important for the way people will vote in the European Parliament Elections.

The site was launched more than a week and a half ago and so far there’s only one news item and four posts on the forum and none on the blogs. You might think that a week and a half dormancy in the blog world is not much but the launch of this site was so important to warrant a press release given by the UHM chief and the Permanent Rep of the European Commission to Malta. As it should be, after all: the project will cost a whooping €65,000 and will be co-funded by the EU.

Yes, €65,000. And what to show for it? Folks, if you had nothing to say in February about an election taking place in June you should have just delayed the launch. Not that there should have been a risk.

Jacques’ blog is undergoing a facelift, by the way. It cost the owner money but I’m sure he’ll be doing it with a smaller sum.

A shoulder to cry on

If I were to sum up the point of an earlier post about the Green Party’s reaction to Demicoli’s views on spring hunting it’s that at times the Party has to choose between being the third party or a green Party. Here’s Jacques expressing preference for the first choice and a commenter opting for the latter.

The Party has usually opted for the first choice. The latest instance is that they’re now offering sympathetic ears to the hunters. The claim they hold against Demicoli is not only that he’s a johnny-come-lately that but that the 2003 “promise” made to hunters by the MIC (where Demicoli was number two) amounts to “deceit” of the hunting community.

Now Demicoli was interviewed by MaltaToday. Here’s what he had to say on the matter:

On Spring hunting we were simply there to tell the people what was negotiated. That is exactly what was negotiated. We could not foretell that three years later there would be a reinterpretation because of the Finnish court case in 2005.

That must be a good defence he made because, as far as I know, none of his detractors ever refers to it. Meanwhile, while Demicoli is attracting hunters’ ire the Greens’ Yvonne Ebejer-Arqueros paid a visit to the hunting and trapping community while on the campaign trail:

We can never agree with certain ideas of theirs, but we can surely understand their frustration at being duped by many unsustainable promises prior to the EU referendum. They in fact remarked that they are bombared by visits from PN and PL exponents promising that they will ‘remedy’ their situation. We however stand by what we have always believed: we are firmly against spring hunting in accordance to EU directives, and we are appalled by the government sitting on the fence with regards to this matter.

Note: the Greens were always against spring hunting in accordance with EU directives and in the EU referendum (held in 2003) hunters were “duped” with “unsustainable promises”. These Greens must be smart people, you start to think. In 2003 they could not only read interpretations of the Birds Directive nobody could but could actually forsee a court ruling three yeas down the road.

Until you come across what Cassola had to say in 2005:

Arnold Cassola, secretary general of the European Greens, said that unfortunately the derogation given is being used as an excuse by hunters to shoot at anything, not only at quails and turtle-doves as stipulated by the Commission. He said that now that evidence shows that the law is being flagrantly broken, the EU should take immediate action to stop spring hunting.

Which means only one thing: in 2005 the Green Party chair, just like Demicoli, was under the impression that there was a derogation that allowed spring hunting on quails and turtledoves and that spring hunting should be stopped only because the hunting community were too trigger happy to limit themselves to these two species of bird.

And, come think of it, if the Greens knew all along that the membership package would not allow the Maltese government to retain spring hunting for anything why didn’t they say so in 2003? Considering that they’re now spinning the story that in that year they instructed their voters to give their first preference to the Nationalists in order to increase the chances of membership when they did not do such thing don’t be surprised if now they’ll be saying to hunters “we told you all long while the Nationalists conned you”.

Remember that as a green party they may not see eye to eye with hunters and trappers but as a third party seeking to attract votes it’s the Nationalists they’re in competition with.

Nationalists are green goblins

Thanks to Mark I discovered a point made by engineer Marco Cremona that driving an electric car does not make much of an environmental difference because whatever gains are made driving said vehicle are lost in inefficiencies in electricity generation at our power station.

Cremona’s was a reply to the news item that Nationalist MEP candidate Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas’ campaign would be a “green campaign”, where commuting is done in an electric car. Cremona said that the Nationalist candidate has “a poor grasp of green issues” because, as we all know, whenever the Nationalists decide to do something for the environment they’re either (a) naive, (b) have sinister, ulterior motives or (c) are just plagiarising ideas from the Green Party. A Nationalist car may run on biofuel but you can bet your last carbon credit it’s been made from boiled babies.

In any case, Nationalist candidates have to be talked out of green thoughts in case the electorate strays from the righteous path and turns its back on true prophets even though it might have turned away with the right message.

For obvious reasons, when I think electric car I do not think Tedesco-Triccas but Edward Mallia; the bearded professor was probably driving one while Roberta was still pedalling at her tricycle. Notwithstanding that, I do not recall Cremona or anyone telling Prof Mallia his grasp of “green issues” is poor.

The party of progressives and moderates and liberals

I hope I’m forgiven if I come back with some delay to the checklist that was Muscat’s speech. Thinking about issues requires more time than shooting them from the him.

I was thinking of Muscat’s comment on the banning of Unifaun’s play Stitching. In the judicial protest the theatre company has presented in Court it claims that there’s nothing in the play which goes things the Maltese Criminal Code does not allow from incitement to hatred, to libel, to sedition, to religious offence or blasphemy. They’re right but then Maltese law also allows quite a lot of discretion to the Board of classification and censorship. Which might mean that the Board’s decision simply to ban the play in question because it’s “shocking” might have grounds in Maltese law as it currently stands.

Muscat has not not said anything about changing the law establishing the Board, busy as he was trashing Tonio Borg. Funny because that’s one policy committement that would be easy to make. So let’s imagine, in the absence of contrary evidence, that the current legal regime will continue to apply with Labour in government.

The appointment of the Board, it should be noted, is not the responsibility of the Minister responsible for culture but the Minister responsible for the police. Who’s most likely to fill that post with a Labour government? It would be the progressive, moderate, liberal Anglu Farrugia who was Labour’s face to Gift of Life’s campaign to entrench the prohibition of abortion in the Constitution.

Cheer up. It could be worse with Adrian Vassallo.

Muscat at the General Conference

“Forget pairing,” Muscat told the government to a round of applause from the Labour delegates, supposedly in reaction to government’s procedural motion limiting votes in the House to one day of the week.

Umm, why the imperative? Who remembers pairing? It was on offer close to a year ago along with the other offer for the post of Speaker. Labour was not interested, Government moved on and Louis Galea will, in all likelihood, be presiding the House until the end of the current legislature. Only two weeks ago, Muscat was saying that there was “no chance of pairing for the time being”. “Forget pairing”? Thanks for reminding us.

That, it seems, was the highlight of Muscat’s speech to the Labour Conference. Or not. The highlight was the electricity tariffs. Well, no: the proposed St John’s museum. Or the road in Ghadira. Or maybe it was the call for Tonio Fenech to resign for having said that the government was not aware of any plans for redundancies at ST.

Maybe it was the banned play Stitching, the reminder that the Nationalist Party is not a liberal party. You’d be forgiven if you thought that, for that matter, neither the Labour Party is a liberal party. After all, during the debate leading to the “seismic changes” to the Party statute the debate was whether it’s a “democratic socialist” or a “social democratic” party. Potato, potatoe, tomato, tomatoe. Anyone spotted the “l” word there?

The transformation might well have taken place yesterday. Muscat said Labour “is the natural choice for progressive and liberals“. Er, whatever happened to the “moderates”? And if you want to hold Tonio Borg as a shining example of what a liberal isn’t it’s helpful to remind that the Foreign Minister’s understanding of “not liberal” is “not governed through a laissez-faire attitude but one where state regulation ensures the protection of those citizens in most need of protection and assistance”. Democratic socialist or social democrat, that would make Muscat even less of a liberal than Borg.

Muscat’s speech then turns to the goodies. There were promises to invest in just about anything that can soak up public money: families, children, women, the self-employed, research, alternative energy. And just in case you were wondering where the money will come from … keep wondering. Because taxes — on labour, on families, on investors — will also go down.

This country is still to learn the difference between policy and a policy objective but this time round Muscat does offer a policy which allows one to dig his teeth in: a mandatory system where those who lose their job benefit from a moratorium on payment lasting a year or two until he finds a new job. Banks often re-negotiate the terms of a loan in the case of people in that situation, after all they’re more interested in collecting their money rather than re-possessing homes. But making it mandatory is sure to raise the risk for a bank lending money to someone from the private sector. And as we know bank will always transfer the risk to the consumer.

Phew. A lengthy post and I’m not sure I’ve covered everything of the “historic” speech. Indeed, in a months time it would be truly historic if anyone managed to rattle off from memory all the points in covered.

Two weeks is a long time in politics

Two weeks ago Watersbroken’s editor Mario Vella wrote in the Times:

To start with, once it becomes obvious that the PN cannot win another election with Dr Gonzi at the helm, there will be attempts to replace him with a younger person. Indeed, such attempts are already underway.

He promised more in a fortnight and here’s what he had to say today:

Finally, I said I would be back here to argue that “it can – and must – be done”. And here I am. Let’s take this step by step. Let’s begin by taking a step backwards. To start with, it cannot be sufficiently stressed that history is on nobody’s side. There is no guarantee that the Partit Nazzjonalista, with or without Dr Gonzi at its head at the next general elections, will lose.

If one week is a long time in politics, just imagine two. What could have happened in the meantime that transformed Gonzi in Mario Vella’s eyes? If you were to ask me, these last two weeks must have been the two toughest Gonzi has had to face ever since he moved into Castille, thanks to his poor handling of the backbench.

Vella’s prediction of the Nationalist Party not making it with Gonzi at the helm in four years’ time is somewhere up there with Jason Micallef claiming in 2006, two years before the polling stations opened, that there was an irreversible trend in favour of Labour which was on its way to certain victory.

But this is probably less a case of preposterous punditry than that Labour habit of speculating about anticipated elections and imminent bloodbaths within the Nationalist Party. I guess you need something to entertain yourself with while you wait for more than two decades in opposition.

Rumblings from the backbench

We already new that JPO was not in agreement with the proposed project in St John’s; the Times had reported doubts expressed by former Ministers Jesmond Mugliette and Ninu Zammit (although in the case of the latter, it was through third parties). Now, looks the malaise is growing in the Nationalist backbench:

A meeting of the Nationalist Party’s parliamentary group held yesterday morning turned out to be a full-scale confrontation with the Prime Minister over the plans for the extension of St John’s Museum.

Although all the participants at yesterday’s meeting took an oath of media silence, this paper can reveal that no less than a third of the MPs who spoke showed they were against the project. Others, who in private are against it, did not speak.

Others argued that such a proposal, which can be considered as a private proposal seeing it came from the St John’s Foundation, should not endanger the government’s plans for Valletta and indeed for the country.

Drawing parallels with 1998 are inevitable; the Indy also notices that, this time, government has forgotten to introduce a procedural motion as it had in that fateful summer ten years ago, a shortcoming which allowed Mintoff the opportunity of what is our equivalent of a filibuster.

But, I’d say, the comparisons end there. There are two fundamental differences. First, Sant’s downfall in 1998 was not thanks to that defeated motion but the fact that he painted himself into an ever-tightening corner. After the defeat it was obvious that Mintoff was ready to filibuster and hector on anything else that came up for debate. Gonzi still has much room for maneuver.

More importantly, the vote is about an Opposition motion which, in my view, has two very important shortcomings. First, it claims that there has been no prioritising of where EU funds will go. This not the case. It also asks that Parliament does the prioritising. That’s not allowed under EU funding rules. Given its previous euroscepticism one might excuse the Opposition’s illiteracy on matters European but any government member voting in favour of this deserves the dunce’s cap.

The motion also claims a conflict of interest in Richard Cachia-Caruana being a member of St John’s Foundation and Permanent Representative of Malta to the EU. This is a specious argument. Apart from the fact that it’s based on the wrong assumption about lack of prioritisation, that would mean that every Minister, in virtue of the fact of being responsible for government entities and a member of cabinet, is in a situation of of conflict of interest anytime a public entity submits a proposal for EU funding.

Imagine anyone voting in favour of that.