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2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 MAY 2020 maltatoday One-month special delivery fee of just €1 per day for orders up to 5 newspaper per address To subscribe 1. Email us your choice of newspapers, recipient's name, address, contact number to production@millermalta.com 2. Forward cheques payabale to Miller Distributors Ltd to address: Miller House, Air- port Way, Tarxien Road, Luqa LQA1814 Queries on other newspapers and magazines, contact production@millermalta.com home delivery maltatoday Malta rattles French, Germans with Irini 'bomb' MATTHEW VELLA MALTA'S prime minister Robert Abe- la yesterday expected phone-calls from Europe's two most powerful leaders. But the scheduled calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emanuel Macron did not take place. It was a day of reckoning inside the European Council: Malta had vetoed EU funds for an important naval opera- tion close to French interests in Libya. Operation Irini, the EU naval mission tasked to enforce an arms embargo in Libya, was launched just months ago. But Malta this week announced it will with- draw its participation, with Armed Forces personnel having been the sole boarding team on the opera- tion. The move, a sop to Turkey, which is shipping weapons to the UN-recognised Government of Na- tional Accord, is intended at encouraging the GNA to come down hard on human traffickers and stem flows of irregular migration to Malta. But the French support the strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is getting his weap- ons over the Egyptian border, and air support from the United Arab Emirates – something Irini cannot stop. News in MaltaToday on Friday of the Maltese withdrawal from Irini prompt- ed a lot of questions inside the EU's Politico-Military Group, where mili- tary reps hold preparatory meetings on defence and security. During the break, Maltese representatives were ac- costed by their Dutch, Luxembourgish and Italian colleagues who said Malta's withdrawal had been "the bomb of the day". STAY IN, STAY SAFE, WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/COVID19 Normality still far away, virus expert PAGE 3 COVID-19 WARNING Merkel and Macron schedule calls with Abela over Malta veto on Operation Irini JAMES DEBONO THE moment people start letting their guard down by not adhering to social distancing rules and basic norms like washing hands and not touching faces, the COVID-19 virus will strike back in a second wave which can be far more lethal than the first in terms of loss of life, warns Chris Bar- bara. COME SANITISE WITH ME How travel changes PAGE 4 COVID-19 will mean digital health certificates and payments, and contact- tracing apps mapping our movements 14-15 maltatoday €1.95 SUNDAY • 10 MAY 2020 • ISSUE 1071 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY INTERVIEW MT2 ADRIAN DELIA MT2 8-9 Man dies after stun gun, sedation used in disturbance complaint MATTHEW AGIUS MAGISTRATE Yana Micallef Stafrace is leading an inquiry in- to the death of a man who had just been subdued with a stun gun by law enforce- ment personnel and administered a seda- tive. In a statement yes- terday, the police said that on Friday evening at around 7pm, po- lice officers were dis- patched to deal with a report of a man on a roof in Zabbar, who was throwing objects at passers-by. PAGE 4 BREAKING BREAD COVID will change the way we eat out. Early booking recommended PAGE 12 LADIES OF THE LOCKDOWN Relax mums. We don't need pandemic superwomen... PGS 10-11 Robert Abela, with French President Emanuel Macron (right) Talk to us | 2131 2020 | bov.com All loans are subject to normal bank lending criteria, credit approval by the Bank and a credit agreement. Further terms and conditions are available from www.bov.com. Issued by Bank of Valletta p.l.c., 58, Triq San Żakkarija, Il-Belt Valletta VLT 1130. Bank of Valletta p.l.c. is a public limited company regulated by the MFSA and is licensed to carry out the business of banking in terms of the Banking Act (Cap. 371 of the Laws of Malta). KEEP YOUR BUSINESS STRONG FINANCING FOR BUSINESS BOV MDB COVID-19 ASSIST Same-day delivery of your favourite Sunday newspaper Monday-Friday Sat Sunday MaltaToday Midweek €1 n/a MaltaToday on Sunday €1.95 BusinessToday €1.50 n/a ILLUM €1.25 The Malta Independent €1 €1 The Malta Independent on Sunday €1.95 Times of Malta €1 €1 Sunday Times of Malta €1.95 In-Nazzjon €1 €1 Il-Mument €1.20 l-Orizzont €1 €1 It-Torca €1.50 Daily Mail €2.40 €2.40 Mail on Sunday €3.30 Daily Mirror €2.50 €2.50 Sunday Mirror €2.70 The Sun €2.50 €2.50 Sun on Sunday €2.50 Daily Express €2.50 €2.50 Sunday Express €3.30 Daily Star €2.20 €2.20 Sunday Star €2.50 Daily Telegraph €4.50 €5.00 Sunday Telegraph €5.70 The Times €4.50 €5.00 The Sunday Times €5.70 Financial Times €3.70 €4.50 People €2.70 The Guardian €3.90 €4.60 The Observer €4.90 Support your favourite newspaper with a subscription https://bit.ly/2X9csmr CORONAVIRUS CRISIS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The two companies and their directors are accused of having acquired an amount of Bluefin tuna that exceeding the quotas allocated to them. The companies are accused of having il- legally caged this tuna back in September 2019, when according to ICCAT (Inter- national Commission for the Conserva- tion of Atlantic Tuna) rules, the excess tuna had to be released by 7 September, 2019. The companies are accused of having retained their illegal quotas against clear instructions from the fisheries depart- ment. The two fish farms, which keep tuna in- side ranches at sea until they grow bigger in size so that they are then harvested and exported to Japanese markets, were not allowed to keep the excess fish in their cages. In a bid to circumvent the quotas, the two companies are accused of having kept the fish "in tow" in cages that were moved around at sea, giving the impression that the fish was not being kept in cage but transported from one place to the other. The criminal action, filed in April, an- ticipated European Commission infringe- ment actions launched this week, accus- ing Malta of failing to ensure the presence of an effective monitoring, control and inspection system in Bluefin tuna farms. Malta's fish farms made over €228 million – for a total of 17.3 million kilo- grammes of tuna – in 2018 selling tuna farmed in Maltese waters, selling over 90% of the stock in Japan. The highly lu- crative industry accounts for 80% of Mal- ta's fishing industry. The Commission said that several au- dit and verification missions carried out by European Commission officials had identified a number of serious shortcom- ings, including failure to allow access to inspectors to waters under Maltese juris- diction during a specific control and in- spection programme. According to the infringement pro- ceedings, Malta had also delayed investi- gations, had limited the number of ran- dom control checks and had also failed to sanction operators. The chief executive officer of the Feder- ation of Maltese Aquaculture Producers (FMAP), Charlon Gouder, told the press on Friday that the infringement proceed- ings were "unfair". "It is unfair, to say the least, that we get accused of something that never hap- pened. No operator ever stopped any of- ficial, be it from the local fisheries depart- ment or from the EU, from making his or her own verifications. We always collab- orated and that is what we will continue doing because it is also in our interest," he told The Times. He continued: "There were times when the control visits took place at a very crit- ical time for the industry, when we were very busy with preparations or at the height of the season, but we never turned our back on them. We always collaborat- ed." The Commission accused Malta of not taking the necessary steps to address the deficiencies that had been pointed out to it and gave the country four months to address the short-comings raised. In the absence of such, the European Commis- sion will step up the action with a rea- soned opinion. Gouder said Malta's bluefin tuna op- erators had an excellent reputation in ICCAT and that the operators want to speed up the process of investigating an- yone caught with large quantities of fish, with sanctions for anyone guilty of ad- ministrative breaches which fall short of a criminal offence. Ranchers kept excess tuna in cages 'on tow' Malta's fish farms made over €228 million in 2018, mainly selling the tuna to Japan