Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/244624
21 Opinion maltatoday, SUNDAY, 19 JANUARY 2014 make a really, really good offer… so long… hey presto! Out pops a spanking new European value that none of us ever knew existed... and of course we're in breach of it. Tut, tut, shame on you, etc. And yet, I would have thought that one of the cardinal European values – unless it has likewise changed in the meantime, you never know – was 'equality'. If one principle applies to a little member state like Malta (or a large but recent one like Hungary) then it automatically applies to all the Union's member states, without exception. That goes also for the European treaties that are supposedly built on these same principles: like the treaties and laws now cited by Commissioner Vivian Reding as the basis for possible future action against Malta. Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil tells us that such January 2014 to force a rethink on the Commission's part regarding the sale of passports… something like (to give a wild, hypothetical example): a European parliamentary motion censuring Malta, drafted and pushed by the same European People's Party that Viviane Reding herself (or her twin) once led as President? This of course brings me to the most glaring lesson we learnt from last Wednesday's debate: the astonishing flexibility of European principles. We all saw how the 'monetisation of citizenship' – which has been taking place in Ireland, Austria, Cyprus and elsewhere for years (if not decades, in Ireland's case) – has suddenly become 'incompatible with European values'. And as this same phenomenon existed before but was plainly never considered a problem, we can only conclude that what actually changed in the meantime was not the nature of the lucrative business of putting European citizenship up for sale; but rather, the 'principle' this trade is supposed to violate. You and I may have been brought up to believe that principles and values are somehow immutable. Not Europe's values, though. These, it would seem, are things that can change from time to time… depending on the precise circumstances of the day, and perhaps the interests of the disparate countries that make up Europe in the first place. So for years and years it may be perfectly acceptable for member states to devise schemes which openly attract investment by 'high-wealth individuals' (who later become 'corrupt oligarchs, mafia bosses and third world drug lords', depending of the exigencies of the morally unimpeachable European parliament)… but when one member state takes the same concept but a small step further, and monetises its own citizenship with only marginal differences to the way it has been done for action may include infringement procedures in the European Court of Justice; and as Busuttil himself once headed the same MiC that taught us all we know about Europe anyway, I for one will take his word for it. But despite having learnt, oh! so much about the EU in the last few days, there are things which I still can't understand. For instance: given that the principle we are supposed to be violating concerns the 'monetisation of European citizenship' – and that monetisation takes many forms, including programmes which offer passports, or channels that lead to passports, in exchange for investment – the European law now invoked against Malta by the Commission should surely also be invoked for all other countries which likewise sell their citizenship. Small problem: Malta's citizenship scheme hasn't actually started as yet; and until a single Maltese passport is sold on the market, there can be no infringement procedures because no directives have actually been infringed. But the same clearly cannot be said for the ongoing investor programmes in other countries such as Austria and Ireland. Passports have already been exchanged for cash investments in both those countries, and others besides. It has been happening for years. So rather than talking about possible future court action against Malta by the Commission… why aren't we talking about action taken by the Commission today – right now – to halt existing programmes in other countries, which also clearly violate the principle of 'linking citizenship to the wallet'? More to the point: now that the vast majority of the European parliament – 89% – has urged the Commission to take precisely such action to prevent this repulsive 'sale of passports' business: why has Commissioner Reding not already called upon all EU member states which have such investor programmes in place, to instantly withdraw those programmes on pain of infringement procedures in the European Court? If Commissioner Viviane Reding is too busy working on that bill of indictment against Malta – no doubt ably assisted by information provided by two of Malta's own MEPs – perhaps her identical twin could answer instead.