Author: Jacques René Zammit

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Luxembourg’s new coat

So the election came and went. Luxembourg’s that is. It came early – some unfathomable scandal to do with phone tapping and the sorts led to the precipitating of ballot consultations – and finished quickly. For southerners like myself who are used to elections being dealt with like some enormous football match complete with hooligan behaviour on the stands, Luxembourg’s national elections was an exercise in sanitised efficiency of the most yawn-inducing kind.

The elections were held on Sunday (yesterday) which also happened to be Mantelsonndag (literally Coat Sunday). Mantelsonndag is the day in which Luxembourgers go out and buy their new winter coat – which means that all the shops have another excuse to open on Sunday. Did this interfere with the fervour of the electoral consultation? Not one bit. Those entitled to vote (it’s less of an entitlement more of an obligation here – you HAVE to vote in Luxembourg) had six hours to go to their allocated booth and pick their candidates of choice in one of four districts (North, South, Centre and East). Polls opened at 8 a.m. and were shut by two in the afternoon, which means you could only just make it for the last order in a restaurant in the city.

With many more parties contesting the elections than in our notoriously bipartisan (+1) home nation you’d expect an interesting level of tension – to say the least. Nothing. At least not outwardly so. Not even the hundreds of billboards (in wood I noticed, très environmentally friendly) with the robotic expressionless faces were subjected to the least of political vandalism. Police on the roads? Are you kidding? People just rushed to the sales in the great shopping centres and forked out some money from Europe’s highest wage packets to update their ski gear and buy the new manteaux. Silence. The four (yes, four) Fiorentina supporters at the Italian joint where we get our weekly fix of calcio probably made the most noise in the whole of Luxembourg on Sunday – and their purple was not for the Pirate Party.

By seven in the evening results started to trickle out and they all but confirmed the predictions with the ruling CSV losing three of its seats in the Luxembourg 60-member parliament and the Greens losing another. The big winners were the Democratic Party who had caused what one of the papers (wort.lu) enthusiastically described as a “wave of blue” (plus four more seats in parliament). Led by the erstwhile Mayor of Luxembour Xavier Bettel the liberal-democrat party made some substantial gains that would give them a strong hand at the negotiating table as Jean-Claude Junker will form a new coalition government – extending his party’s (and his) stay in power beyond the current 18 year record.

The socialist party and left did not make any particular gains while a very interesting development occurred with the newly formed Pirate Party which managed to garner close to 3% of the vote on the first attempt. No seats in parliament for the swashbuckling heroes of liberty but the amount of votes they obtained guarantees them state financing for their next attempt (are you watching Malta?).

Thusly, without too much of a fuss and without any excessive drama, the Grand Duchy got its new coat. The multi-party politics formula seems to work  – and work well – for this tiny nation. Not for them the mass meetings and the carcades… the only time Luxembourg gets to see those is during a World or European cup… then again there’s no Luxembourgers in those carcades – just those noisy southern guests from Portugal, Italy or Greece.

Ah Europe, Unity in Diversity.

Categories
Mediawatch

When justice opens her eyes

There’s a reason why justice is supposed to blind. Lady justice is always portrayed with the scales of balance in one hand, the sword in another and a bandage covering her eyes – the latter a strong symbol of her “blindness”. The reason for this blindness is the fact that before justice everyone is equal – there should be no distinction and no discrimination. There are not two sets of laws that apply to different categories of people.

Today’s judgement by Magistrate Peralta as reported in the papers might mistakenly lead people to begin to believe that justice has opened its eyes. It would be a wrong kind of opening of the eyes because it is the kind that seems to imply that there is a law for one kind of persons (the locals) and another for another kind (foreigners). The phrase “foreigners engaging in crimes will be dealt with seriously” is dangerously equivocal and has hopefully been misinterpreted by the reporting press.

One would hope that whoever engages in crimes is dealt with seriously… no matter what the nationality on their passport. There is a second danger that is inherent in this statement and this is the fact that it encourages the kind of “us and them” talk that until now had been exclusively the domain of our government as it pandered to the populist ideas about the dangers of having too many foreigners among us.

So let’s hope this unhappy statement is clarified and rectified. And remember – on paper at least, “la legge è uguale per tutti”.

Categories
Mediawatch Sport

Football Memories

I hope Roberts Viksne does not mind this but I am posting this documentary that he made as part of his course in video production at the University of Malta. Great work Roberts and thank you for bringing all this information together and presenting it in such a clear and objective manner. For the love of football.

 

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Flogging passports

It (supposedly) takes quite some time to draft a legal notice and amendments to the Citizenship Act setting up a scheme to sell citizenship – Identity Malta. I am sure that somebody in the Taghna Lkoll government did not hit upon this halfwit idea while perusing through a September edition of the Economist. (Click here: If Austria and Cyprus can do it then why can’t we?). The Draft Legal Notice in question has already been uploaded through the Running Commentary network and we will oblige by adding a link here (out of courtesy of course). So what could have prompted Muscat and his crew to decide that it is a good idea to start selling the Maltese passport like it was some gourmet pastizz for the rich and famous?

The gist of the Economist article linked above could already point you in the right direction as to what kind of clients one can expect when one sets up shop in the market for readily available EU documents (just add cash).

“One category of applicants consists of rich people from emerging economies seeking convenience and security. Many are Chinese, though since the Arab spring demand is growing from the Middle East. A second is made up of citizens of rich countries who wish to disguise their origins when visiting dangerous places.” – Selling citizenship, Papers Please (The Economist, 28th September 2013).

We’ve all heard of people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. That kind of client would not really be in the market for an EU passport that comes tied so easily with national obligations such as the European Arrest Warrant. No sir. The market is out there for people who are rich enough to want to get a foothold into the EU – an EU passport that allows them to roam around the continent and act as EU nationals. The nouveau riches of this world – from Moscow to Guangdong would jump at the opportunity of being considered an EU citizen and this for what they would consider a handful of pennies.

So while we already know that our government is willing to sell a hold in our energy company for a pittance (yep, two Gareth Bales remember) and that the real push behind that memorandum of misunderstanding is the foothold that a Chinese company gets in the European market (see That China Connection) we now discover that the prostitution of national assets does not stop there. This latest move must not only be put in the light of recent events though – it jars even when you look at it from a wider picture and here are a few conclusions that this blog has reached:

1) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part I

For a party that spends most of its time denigrating the EU and speaking of it in the third person plural while emphasising the “Us” vs “them” scenarios this is one hell of a giant step: it is recognising the value of having an EU passport. It actually put a price on it. 650,000 euros and Joe’s your uncle. Would the Labour party have recognised the worth of EU citizenship a decade ago we’d surely be in a much better place – there would be so many more Maltese voters who are not afflicted by a sudden bout of Tourette’s whenever the good old continental grouping is mentioned.

2) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part II

So, having sussed out that there is something advantageous about owning a passe par tout l’EU thingy in hand what do the great thinkers in the Taghna Lkoll fold do? They opt to debase it and sell it to people with cash searching for a convenient base. Mind you it’s not like we did not have similar schemes aimed at attracting fat ducks before – we never gave them a passport though. Even our permanent resident scheme ran into quite a bit of controversy (as did the High Net Worth Individual scheme). Those schemes had an added value that the amount that a person seeking residence needed to invest went to a property owner in Malta – not as a cash payment to the government of Malta. So who are we really in the market for? you’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see this one coming. Għami iżraq as we say in the vernacular.

3) Suddenly we’re not so full up and outnumbered

Not that this probably matters in the Taghna Lkoll Cosmic View of things but here have a government that has been weeping at every available opportunity that our country cannot deal with the influx of more immigrants that we are inundated and that we are practically the victims and nobody will help us. That same government is now setting up shop selling citizenship, yes, selling citizenship to anyone who can afford it. I thought that the Italian government’s token move of awarding citizenship posthumously to the victims of the Lampedusa tragedy was tragicomic but this… well this one takes the cake. There is no shame, no pride either in this Taghna Lkoll government. The way it flings itself from one inconsistency to another while barking at whoever criticises it with feeble excuses based on illogical fallacies is beyond pathetic.

4) Taghna Lkoll?

I saved the best for last. This scheme is yet another dagger in the whole Taghna Lkoll farce. Let us imagine that Malta was one big cake (I know that between iced buns and free for alls Taghna Lkollytes will quickly take to the metaphor) and that Joseph Muscat’s hullabaloo before the election was all about how this cake was for all of us to share rightly and equitably. Let us think for one minute how, always basing ourselves on Labour’s protestations before the election, this cake was half-baked and barely had enough to provide for us all. What has our prime confectioner gone and done? Well, while the cake has not got any larger he has decided to invite guests over to stay and join la grande abbuffata. Yes sir. It’s officially Tagħhom Ukoll now without so much as a bye your leave. But they are rich I hear you say… they pay money…. sure and they will be queuing for those free health services, those free allowances and buying the same property to which every other Maltese national is entitled.

Small ideas for small minds. I guess that really sums it up.

UPDATE

Early feedback to this post shows that there might be more to it than just a Taghna Lkoll ploy. Henley, the firm mentioned in the Economist report might have an interest that goes further back than March of this year.

A pre-Taghna Lkoll conference in Dubai discusses Global Residence & Citizenship Schemes (with Maltese participants).

Reuters on Henley.

 

Categories
Mediawatch Transport

Case Closed

F**k “tu quoque“, Muscat has resorted to an all new tactic straight out of the immense book of playground logic. The idea of claiming that whatever bad his party in government was doing had already been done by the nationalist party in government was beginning to run thin. So just before “talk to the hand ‘coz the face ain’t listening” and “sticks and stones won’t break my bones” he has taken up another of the playground greats: “I’m not playing”. This, mind you, from a man who sits as the Prime Minister of a supposèd democratic republic.

The latest hissy fit comes in the context of RefaloGate. Interviewed by the Times Muscat stated categorically that as far as he was concerned the case was closed.  Muscat is obviously labouring under the illusion that quod Muscat dixit veritatis habet rigorem – anything that he says is automatically true or right because he says it. So he fobs off the journalist de tour by telling him (1) Refalo acted in accordance with Gozo Channel policy, (2) therefore for Joseph Muscat the case is closed.

Thankfully the Times does not stop there. It does point out that “Speaking to Times of Malta on condition of anonymity, various Gozo Channel employees denied such a policy existed. In practice, it always used to send one of its ferries relieved from the shuttle service empty to dock for the night at Mġarr.”

Somehow the contrasting versions, the foot shuffling and the inability of Anton Refalo to give a clear answer to any question make me more inclined to believe the anonymous Gozo Channel employees. As for Muscat, his latest tactic reminds me of the kid at school who brought the ball for footie during the break. The moment his side was losing or the moment he contested a hot decision he would pick the ball place it under his arms and walk off huffing and puffing. “The game is over”.

Sadly for Muscat this is not a playground and politics is not about his personal football. The case is far from closed, it remains an open sore that will continue to fester and remind the people that “Taghna Lkoll” was nothing but words…. small ideas for small people.

Categories
Mediawatch

Your bus is on fire

Yesterdays Indy had an article about an “Arriva-like” bus that caught fire in the Land Hesse in Germany. It got me thinking a little about these Mercedes Citaro buses and all the problems they have faced: not just in Malta but also in the UK and Germany to mention but a few. You may probably have heard of the Boeing Dreamliner’s issues (the 787) that forced most of the newly launched planes to be grounded. That is the way to go normally – it’s not the first time we have heard of a major car company calling back a particular model due to its defective nature being dangerous to users.

So why does the Mercedes-Citaro model (not sure if more specification is needed here) not get called back too? The more we hear about buses catching fire or stalling the more I wonder whether we are not all too eager to rush to blame the planning and the purchasing (which was atrocious of course) and whether we forget that there is a manufacturer that should to a certain extent be made responsible for certain shortcomings.

In other words while the planning and introduction of the Arriva service was definitely just a few steps short of a cosmic failure this should not overshadow the fact that the problem with these buses (aside from the ridiculous idea of putting behemoths on Malta’s tiny roads) is also something technical that should be traced back to the maker.

That, if nothing else, should justify the reasonable grounding of a large part of Arriva’s fleet until a solution to these spontaneous combustions is found.