Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1024340
24 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 OPINION WHEN Manfred Weber announced his intention to run for EU Commission president next year, it did not exactly come across as an earth-shattering surprise. The Maltese expression 'waqa l-ass' has rarely had a more apposite application: it is as though the trump card we all knew was in the EPP President's hand, was finally placed on the table. Retrospectively, the an- nouncement also put all that MEP's former statements about Malta in general – and Joseph Muscat in par- ticular – into some kind of context. It is no secret that Muscat has (or had) his own eye on that job, too; and that he enjoys (or enjoyed) a level of support in that direction from the incum- bent EU Commissioner, Jean Claude Juncker. In any case: the prospect may admittedly seem a little improbable today, with all that's happened in the past few years. Nonetheless I am informed (by all my EU con- tacts) that there was a time, not so long ago, when it was given serious credence indeed within the EU's inner sanctum. To date, I have not been informed of any actual change to that scenario: there is, in fact, no reason to suppose that Muscat's can- didature for that position is in any way 'off the cards', as so many people here seem to think it is. What we do know for a certainty, however, is that there has been a concerted attempt to sabotage it from the outset. If you'll remem- ber, Weber had addressed a Nationalist Party mass meeting before the last elec- tion – when Muscat's ambi- tions were already known, or at least suspected – and his own speech on that oc- casion made the connection abundantly clear. "[Muscat's] behaviour is not Malta, this corruption is not Malta, Joseph Muscat is not Malta," he told the crowd. "Malta deserves a better future; you will be the future of Malta. Your vote isn't only for the future of Malta, but for the future of Europe..." Please note: "the future of Europe". How else to interpret that, but as an in- direct 'warning' that Joseph Muscat might be considered for the top Commission job, if he went on (as he, in fact, did) to win that election? Not all the dots were avail- able to be joined back then; but they are now, and the implications are inescap- able. The 2017 election campaign was dominated by a single issue, Egrant (at least from the Opposition's perspective). As with all his other pro- nouncements on Malta over the past two years, Weber evidently seized on that allegation to undermine a future rival's bid for a posi- tion he had earmarked for himself. And just to leave no doubt as to the EPP leadership's intentions, its vice presi- dent, Dara Murphy, even spelt them out for us in no uncertain terms: declaring, on June 28, that "it is 'inap- propriate' for Prime Min- ister Joseph Muscat to be even mentioned as a poten- tial President of the Euro- pean Commission given the serious allegations against the government..." With hindsight of Weber's publicly-stated political ambitions, another card- game analogy shows its hand. In whist-based games such as Bridge, it would be described as 'drawing out the trumps': i.e., forcing your opponents to place their best cards on the table, where they will be of no further use in the rest of the game. Weber's attempt to influence the outcome of Malta's election must also be seen in that light: clearly, it was aimed at ridding him- self of a future competitor. So far, so good. Politics is often described as a 'game', and there is nothing illicit about the strategy in itself... as long, of course, as there is no cheating involved. But alas, politics is far more often described as a 'dirty game' than a clean one: and – also with hind- sight – there is a lot to sug- gest that the deck of cards has been 'fixed' for this particular hand. Both Weber's and Mur- phy's declarations were made at a point before the magisterial inquiry con- cluded that the Egrant allegations were, in fact, a fabrication. Naturally, the EPP leader- ship can claim to have been uninvolved in the decep- tion itself; I myself con- sider it highly unlikely that they would have immersed themselves that deeply into the murky waters of Maltese politics. Nonetheless, now that Egrant has been exposed as a lie, all their pre-emptive objections to Muscat's possible candidature must be revisited accordingly. Juncker has already hinted as much, by publicly 'wel- coming' the inquiry conclu- sions. As things stand, how- ever, it is still far from clear whether the European So- cialists will indeed nominate Joseph Muscat as a candi- date for the Commission presidency. My gut feeling tells me that it won't. In one respect, the EPP's card- game strategy has certainly been successful. In the eyes of Europe and the world, both Malta and its Prime Minister have been well and truly tainted. As for myself, I will not make any secret of the fact that I sincerely hope Joseph Muscat is nominated for that position; and that he goes on to get it, too. I have no doubt this declared bias of mine will immediately be interpreted along the usual, childish partisan lines that we collec- tively seem incapable of ever rising above as a nation; but like Rhett Butler before me, quite frankly I don't give a damn. My reasons for wanting Muscat to take over the Commission have nothing to do with local politics – or even with Muscat himself, for that matter. They have everything to do with the direction of the European Union as a whole, and where (if anywhere at all) Malta will eventually fit into the revised structures. To be honest, it doesn't even have to be Joseph Muscat. Any Maltese citi- zen, from any political background, would get my vote in this matter: so long as the candidate concerned is: a) capable, and; b) willing to defend the national interest tooth and nail, against what it is likely to prove the greatest exis- tential threat this country has faced since Independ- ence. Why is it such a crucial de- cision for Malta, you might be asking? Part of the answer is pro- vided by Manfred Weber himself, who delivered the inaugural address at a meet- ing (in September 2017), of the Union of European Federalists: "There is a new atmosphere in the European Union, with the believe [sic] that Europe is the future of this continent." He was referring to a new 'pro-integration wave' in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, which seems to have – from the very superficial perspective we have come to expect from European politicians these days – 'polarised' Europeans into pro-federal 'idealists', and anti-federal 'extremists, populists, Neanderthals, etc.' Put simply, the idea is to fend off any possibil- ity of further EU disinte- gration, by hastening its metamorphosis into a single, centralised 'super-state'. Weber himself is described by Politico as 'an avowed champion of the EU project'; though the exact nature of this 'project' has never fully been described or explained. It is debatable, for in- stance, whether 'moderate' conservatives like Weber are even in favour of a fully federalised Europe; but then again, the drive in that di- rection does not necessarily come from either Weber or the EPP alone. There is, as indicated above, such a thing as a 'Un- ion of European Federalists'; and Weber's faction within the EPP clearly has some goals in common. Some of these are already stated aims in themselves: as Malta already knows to its cost, there is a drive towards tax harmonisation across the European Union. For reasons that are too cumbersome to go into here, that would be catastrophic for this country's economic pros- pects (and for a change, both local parties seem to agree). Raphael Vassallo In whist-based games such as Bridge, it would be described as 'drawing out the trumps': i.e., forcing your opponents to place their best cards on the table, where they will be of no further use in the rest of the game. Weber's attempt to inf luence the outcome of Malta's election must also be seen in that light: clearly, it was aimed at ridding himself of a future competitor Why Malta should push for a Maltese