Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1081437
OPINION 8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 13 FEBRUARY 2019 I'LL admit my Spanish is a little rusty these days… but that tran- script of a phone-call between Malta's director of fisheries and a Spanish tuna magnate re- minded me of a song – actually, at least two songs – by 1980s Spanish/Italian electro-pop duo, Righeira. With only a little poetic li- cence, you could almost sing it verbatim to the tune of 'Vamos A La Playa'. Just remember to add a quick electric drum solo (tata-tana-tana-tatta-TA!) in between each line: "Te llamo por decirte… que estoy en Bulgarì…. para ar- reglar las cosas… solo para ti…" Everyone join in the cho- rus now: "Tienes que pagarmi! Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh!' (Repeat to fade). At a stretch, you could also throw in the refrain from that other (somewhat pertinent) hit of theirs: 'No Tengo Din- ero'. And there you have it: Righeira's entire discography, summed up neatly in one sen- tence from a recorded conver- sation… Nor, it must be said, is that the only thing encompassed by that single, fleeting sen- tence. It also manages to con- dense some 20 years of stand- ard government practice into just three words. 'Solo para ti'. Taken out of context, those also lend them- selves spectacularly well to the lyrics of a love song. I can al- most already hear them sung by Julio Iglesias: 'Solo para ti… para ti, por siempre… Oh, Fuentes, mi amor…!" But then again, it is slightly difficult to take them out of a context that's about as gushingly ro- mantic as a pile of rotting fish entrails… OK, let's take a small step back. That phone-call took place at a time when Malta's (now-suspended) Director of Fisheries, Andreina Fenech Farrugia, was supposed to be "representing Malta in meet- ings of the fishing sector that were taking place in Sofia". Yet in her own words, the only reason she was there was for the benefit of a certain Jose Fuentes (presumably one of the 'hijos' in 'Ricardo Fuentes Y Hijos': a Spanish tuna pen- ning giant, also present in Malta in the form of 'Mare Blu'). Before even turning to the awkward implications of a government regulator who ap- parently doubles up as a paid lobbyist for the very industry she is supposed to be 'regulat- ing'… the words 'solo para ti' have resonance that carries far, far beyond the specifics of the tuna trade. Fisheries is not exactly the only department where State regulators end up acting like free agents for industry. There are echoes of the same basic attitude in a Planning Author- ity that sometimes doubles up as an extension of the Malta Developers' Association; a 'Wild Birds Regulatory Unit' that seems only ever interest- ed in maximising the number of wild birds that can be hunt- ed or trapped; a Parliamentary Secretariat for Animal Rights, which boasts about finding 'loopholes' through which animal rights can be restricted even more than they already are… so from that angle, it shouldn't really surprise any- one that Malta's Directorate of Fisheries would be more concerned with ensuring that industrial fishing giants get what they want, than with the sustainability or otherwise of Malta's fisheries. It is pretty much the stand- ard way in which Malta's reg- ulatory authorities operate – and have always operated – in all other areas, too. There are, however, occa- sional minor variations in this theme. I mentioned 'hunting and trapping', for instance; but while we can all see that political decisions have been taken to favour (or at least placate) the hunting lobby over the decades… I seriously doubt whether there was ever any talk of money changing hands. No, the currency under- pinning the hunting issue in Malta is clearly not money. It is politics (or, to be more specific still, a passion that translates directly into losable votes). Whether that makes it any more or less justifiable is ultimately a subjective ques- tion; either way, the effect is still broadly the same. It still translates into a regulatory body that represents (directly or indirectly) the interests of only one side of the issue at hand; it still means that deci- sions affecting how that issue is regulated are going to be, at best, lopsided. Narrow the focus down to only the tuna export/re-export trade… and to be honest, we almost didn't need any leaked recordings to understand that something has been decidedly fishy about the whole thing for years. When I wrote a number of articles questioning Malta's re-export figures in 2007, the Fisheries Directorate (under different management) re- sponded exactly as if its en- tire raison d'etre was simply to defend the industry at all costs. And when people start- ed suspecting that the 'white slime' polluting our beaches was somehow associated with Malta's tuna penning industry, the Fisheries Ministry went into denial overdrive, and re- sisted even investigating the matter for years. (Eventually an investigation was held, and, my, what a surprise: aerial photos showed a clear white trail leading directly to the tuna pens…) Even without any incrimi- nating transcripts, it has been patently obvious for over a decade that this industry ex- erts a profound, pervasive power over Maltese govern- ments and regulatory bodies. And it should also be fairly obvious that the source of all this power, in this particular context, cannot realistically be 'politics' (still less 'passion'). Unlike the hunting commu- nity, the aquaculture lobby does not potentially translate into a multitude of lost votes. And, also unlike the hunters… it pumps millions of euros in- to the Maltese economy each year. It is from this perspective that those leaks do indeed add a fresh insight. For it's not just the local govern- ment and institutions that have consistently turned a blind eye to suspected foul play in this business; the in- ternational tuna regulator, ICCAT, has also consistently set bluefin tuna quotas much higher than scientific recom- mendations (in 2007, they set them at nine times the ad- vised figure). Meanwhile, the European Commission acts as sole representative to ICCAT, on behalf of all 28 member states; and by an interesting coincidence, the Commis- sion has consistently used its position on ICCAT to argue for higher… and higher… and higher quotas. (Note: by an even more interesting coin- cidence, the last two Fisher- ies Commissioners were both Maltese.) It can be seen, then, that the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fisheries in general – Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Malta, etc. – likewise exerts enough political clout to pretty much dictate the European Com- mission's approach to regu- lating the entire industry. In other words, there is a level at which the European Com- mission itself also doubles up as an agent representing only the industry's interests: as if it existed only to defend the profit-margins of giant cor- porations, instead of… um… whatever the European Com- mission is actually meant to exist for. And while (obviously) these latest leaks still need to be properly investigated, and all that… they do seem to at least make part of this process vis- ible to everyone. The English translation for the sentence I joked about earlier is: "I'm in Bulgaria just for you, you have to pay me, because there's a meeting and I'm with the [director] general of Brussels." The same article goes on say that "The Span- ish investigators have alleged that Fenech Farrugia used her influence to regularize the catches so that they could be exported to lucrative markets in Japan, Spain and the US. Fenech Farrugia is being ac- cused of taking bribes." If so, this would certainly explain why Malta's director of fisheries chose to repre- sent only Fuentes's interests, at a meeting where she was supposed to be representing Malta's official position. But it doesn't quite explain why she exerts so much influence over the European decision-mak- ing process in the first place. How could Dr Fenech Far- rugia assure Fuentes that she could, in practice, 'use her in- fluence to regularize catches'? What made her so certain, a priori, that the European DG Peche would consent to regu- larise those catches, just be- cause she asked them to? Placed in the context of around 10 years of the Europe- an DG Peche doing precisely that – i.e., regulating dubious catches, at the request of lob- byists – it can only raise ques- tions about how the industry is being regulated at European level. To ask at least one of these questions somewhat bluntly myself: do the sus- pected 'bribes' stop only at the level of Malta's fisheries directorate? Or is there an en- tire chain of money changing hands, going much further up the ladder of power that we can see so far? But then again: at a certain level, it doesn't even really matter all that much. Wheth- er or not the corruption stops at the lower rungs, or (like the proverbial Maltese rotten fish) spirals all the way to very top… decisions taken at the highest European levels are still heavily lopsided in favour of this particular industry. And as far as I am aware, that level of possible corruption has never been investigated at all. Raphael Vassallo 'Tienes que pagarmi… oh, oh-oh-oh-oh…' Even without any incriminating transcripts, it has been patently obvious for over a decade that this industry exerts a profound, pervasive power over Maltese governments and regulatory bodies