Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1466490
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 MAY 2022 OPINION DURING his speech at the PN General Council that opened the party's leadership election process, last Sunday, Bernard Grech did a first by revealing the extent of the Nationalist Party's financial woes. According to what he said, the party's debt has run up to some €32 million and its media arm is unable to make a profit. Moreover, the PN lacks the cash needed to run the cam- paigns for the European Parlia- ment and local council elections. He referred to this pitiful fi- nancial situation to imply that the PN's problems are more of a managerial type than political, by putting it this way: "How can we promise to better manage public funds if we can't manage our finances better? How can we attract talent if people don't believe in our capacity to imple- ment things?" This is nothing short of us- ing the party's financial woes to cover up for its political short- comings. He is even preparing PN supporters for the coming defeats in the local councils and European Parliament elections, by shifting responsibility on to his predecessors. The way he put it, there is nothing wrong with the PN's po- litical stances and the problems lie with its financial shortcom- ings. This is misleading. In one fell swoop, Bernard Grech switched the public dis- cussion on the PN from its polit- ical shortcomings to its financial and management problems. Af- ter that speech, the PN's finan- cial woes came to the fore in the public debate on the fate of the PN. The discussion on how the PN is being abandoned, slowly, slowly, by its own supporters faded into thin air to be replaced by the debate on the PN's finan- cial situation. I do not know whether Ber- nard Grech did this on purpose. If he did so purposely, this was a brilliant move. He also attempt- ed to shift the responsibility of the PN's staggering loss in last month's election on to those who burdened the party with such a huge debt before he was appointed leader. The PN's finances were nev- er a strong aspect of the party's organisation. The decision taken during the days of Joe Saliba to rebuild the PN's headquarters in Pietà was probably the move that exarcerbated the precipi- tous downfall of the PN's finan- cial standing. So there you have it: while the PN was boasting of Lawrence Gonzi's safe pair of hands in running the government, the management of the internal PN organisation and assets went awry. PN party leaders tend to leave internal party matters in the hands of the general secre- tary when they are Prime Min- isters; and financial prudence in governement is not necessarily reflected by financial prudence in the running of the party. The present financial woes of the PN are the result of this schizophrenic arrangement, somewhat dictated as it is by de- mocrtaic principles and the rule of law. One perturbing aspect is the situation of Media.link Com- munications - a limited liability company owned by the Nation- alist Party and whose main oper- ations include NET Television, Radio 101, and the In-Nazzjon and Il-Mument newspapers. It is illegal for a limited liability company to keep operating if it is technically bankrupt and Ber- nard Grech's reference to this company seemed to imply as much. This situation could put the PN in legal hot waters. The situation calls for coura- geous steps that would restruc- ture the whole financial aspect of the PN organisation itself. Leaving things as they are, while relying on the occasional injec- tions of funds derived from pub- lic collections in what are called marathon events, cannot stop the rot. Bernard Grech could prove to be a veritable safe pair of hands – and a godsend if he manages to restructure the PN's financial arm. The political debate will con- tinue notwithstanding, but at least, the very survival of the PN would not be threatened. No to Nato membership I do not usually comment on what other columnists write, but I cannot ignore Kristina Chetcu- ti's article in The Sunday Times last week. Chetcuti – or whoever suggest- ed the article to her – decided that it is a good idea were Mal- ta to join Nato! Nato was a dy- ing organisation before Putin's onslaught of Ukraine made it become suddenly important for European security. Finland and Sweden, two neutral EU states are currently seriously consid- ering joining NATO for obvious reasons – their border with Pu- tin's Russia. I hardly think that this logic applies to Malta's sit- uation. In 1964 when Malta became an independent sovereign state, Prime Minister George Borg Olivier was rebuffed when he sought membership of Nato. Observers at the time said that the French suspected that with this move Britain would have an 'extra vote' on the Nato ta- ble. Others say that this was not the only motivation behind the blunt refusal. When Dom Mintoff won the 1971 election, his aim was to get as much money he could from Britain and Nato for a seven-year period after which Malta would no longer serve as a military base and declare neutrality. Eventually the PN came round to the neutrality idea and this was even introduced in the Con- stitution. But that's another sto- ry. With the fall of the Soviet Un- ion, Nato actually lost its pur- pose and at a certain point, even Trump hinted at the US aban- doning Nato. In the meantime, the military alliance kept on existing while expanding to the east, something that irked Putin no end. The war in Ukraine has resus- citated Nato – as far as the bor- der with Russia is concerned. The situation in the Mediterra- nean is completely different and there is no real justification for Malta to even think of the possi- bility of joining Nato. Chetcuti's suggestion is neither logical nor sensible. Our EU membership is safe- guard enough – more so when the idea of a European army is being seriously considered. French president Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have both expressed their support for a joint European army. Macron endorsed the idea in 2018, after the US withdrew from the Inter- mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and in the light of Donald Trump's scepticism of Atlanti- cism. Other European politicians who have expressed support in- clude former French prime min- ister Alain Juppé, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlus- coni, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, former Czech prime ministers Miloš Zeman and Bohuslav So- botka, and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. A European army is even on the official programme of the European People's Party. The PN's financial woes Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com Bernard Grech said the PN lacks the cash needed to run the campaigns for the European Parliament and local council elections