Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/310131
IV Europe 2014 RECENT polls surprisingly place Roberta Metsola at the forefront among Nationalist candidates in this month's European parliamen- tary elections, and second only to former Prime Minister Alfred Sant across the full spectrum of political parties. Significantly, she is currently out- performing her closest runner-up David Casa, despite having only occupied her EP seat for one year compared to Casa's two full terms. She also leaves former foreign min- ister (and veteran of the 1980s) Francis Zammit Dimech trailing somewhere in the distance. Clearly, the 34-year-old lawyer and mother of three must be doing something right, either in her per- sonal campaign or in her work in five EP committees: Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Consum- er Protection, Organised Crime and Petitions. And while surveys and polls are open to interpretation, it is safe to say that Metsola represents a younger and 'newer' face of the PN… and in a sense also of Maltese politics as a whole. She is among the first of a generation of politicians who started their careers against the backdrop of Malta already firm- ly anchored in the European Union; and though brief, her experience as MEP so far has certainly put her in the national spotlight… even if to be held up as an object of public opprobrium, as was the case with the recent EP resolution on the IIP 'cash-for-citizenship' scheme. Her success in opinion polls may therefore be a reflection of a hunger among the Nationalist electorate for more European-oriented MEPs… as well as people who show a combat- ive spirit. But on both counts, this also points towards an apparent contradiction in the Nationalist Party campaign. So far this has not been a battle fought on European issues. Metso- la's own PN has urged voters to use this election to pass judgment on Labour's first year in government; and its billboards have to date like- wise focused on exclusively local issues: government nepotism, etc. And unlike its outspoken MEP candidate from Gzira, the PN has meanwhile also acquired a reputa- tion for sitting on the fence on a number of issues. Isn't all this ironic, seeing as it was the PN which had initially championed EU accession? And couldn't her own popularity, at the expense of older party stalwarts, also be viewed as an indication that the PN may be out of touch with its own electorate? "I would like to see more EU is- sues discussed locally," she begins; and promptly surprises me with a rather blunt assessment of the PN's apparent reluctance to campaign on the same level. "Let's not forget that the PN spoke about European issues in the first MEP election… and lost," she re- marks pointedly. Nor is this situa- tion unique to Malta, she adds. "Eu- ropean elections all over Europe tend to be contested on local issues. But it also depends what you mean by 'European' and 'local' issues..." Roberta Metsola here outlines a theme to which she will return throughout this interview. In the present political context, there is no real distinction between 'European' and 'Maltese'. That, she argues, was the whole point of Malta joining Eu- rope in the first place: a point that the Labour Party has yet to fully take on board. "One thing to bear in mind that around 80% of Malta's legislation now comes directly out of the Eu- ropean Parliament. In a sense this means that whatever we talk about has a European angle. My job as an MEP is in fact to determine the Eu- ropean angle of any given issue; and to see what, if anything, can be done about it at European Parliament level…" As an example, she cites the LNG tanker at Marsaxlokk. Ostensibly this is a local issue, yet it has envi- ronmental and security ramifica- tions that are also of concern to the rest of Europe. "When the issue was brought to the fore, I asked myself if there was anything that could be done about it through the EP. If there are tools I can use… why not use them?" As the only Maltese member of the EP's petition's committee, Met- sola soon found the tools she was looking for, and submitted a 3,000- strong petition calling on the Euro- pean Commission to investigate any risk to public safety. The proposal has yet to be debated. Elsewhere, Metsola finds herself having to screen endless articles of legislation to determine what im- pact, if any, it may have on Malta. "Since joining the EU, Malta has had to adopt legislation concerning data protection. One of the rules – pushed heavily by the Germans at the time – was that all companies of a particular size were to employ a data protection officer…" Metsola agrees with the idea in principle, but argues that the logis- tics of the original proposal would have translated into a death knell for many local businesses. "Take a company the size of Lufthansa Teknik, or BOV. Yes, hav- ing a data protection officer in such cases is necessary and feasible. But if we're to take the case of a small shop, already struggling to stay afloat… that's a different story." Malta being overwhelmingly dom- inated by SMEs, Metsola argues that it was in the national interest to counter any adverse repercus- sions on the local business commu- nity. "As an MEP I worked to make sure there were exemptions in the law for small companies: exemp- tions that take local realities into consideration." For all this, she remains better known for her similar interventions on the IIP scheme. She is credited with (or blamed for, depending on one's perspective) originally push- ing the proposal to have this scheme discussed in parliament. The result was an almost unanimous vote to censure the Maltese government over this issue. I ask Metsola if she is concerned with the outcome of that particular tussle. It could easily be argued that the IIP scheme hurt the National- ist Party more than Labour in the long run. The PN can claim credit for the amendments that eventually brought it in line with the Commis- sion's proposals… but in the end, the resolution for which Metsola and her colleagues worked so hard was almost immediately supersed- ed, and the scheme itself 'endorsed' by the Commission despite the EP's reservations. This, in turn, raises questions about her own political judgment in pursuing the vote. It also exposes the limits of the EP's effectiveness: with worrying consequences for prospective candidates who base their campaigns on their own ability to influence European legislation. Interestingly, she plays down her own involvement in precipitating the discussion. "The citizenship is- sue was not pushed only by the Na- tionalists. It was first talked about in October; and by December MEPs from all groups were coming up to us, asking us what was happening, what it was all about. Questions were raised by German and French MEPs at a group meeting. The is- sue itself involved my committee [Justice and Home Affairs], and that meant that it landed on my desk. I worked on making sure that Malta wasn't tarnished as a country, that the sale of citizenship remained the sole focus of the resolution." Really? That's odd, because her critics pointed out how the PN delegation – including Metsola – fought even with their own political allies to shoot down a proposal that would have removed direct refer- ence to Malta in the final resolution. As a result, the same resolution (her critics, mostly Labour MEPs, argue) came across as a condemnation of Malta, and only Malta: despite the fact that other EU states had similar schemes in place. Metsola denies this charge. "No, the resolution clearly singled out the act of putting a monetary value on citizenship. It was applicable to all such schemes, but there was only one which constituted an outright sale of citizenship at the time, and that was Malta's." This, she insists, is why Malta was singled out; and the Labour govern- ment could have avoided the criti- cism by thinking the same scheme through properly in the first place. Metsola also accuses Labour of employing double standards when it comes to EP debates: having em- ployed similar tactics at EP level against initiatives by the National- ist administration. When still an MEP, Joseph Muscat had circulated a petition among Marsascala resi- dents to block EU funding for the Sant' Antnin waste recycling plant. If successful, she adds, this would have derailed an injection of 70% of the total cost, which exceeded €21 million. "Did the PN call Joseph Muscat a traitor when he tried to block fund- ing for the Sant' Antin waste recy- cling plant? Did we claim he was attacking Malta? No… the Maltese government respected the Opposi- tion leader's right to speak his mind. But when I spoke my mind, I was called a traitor… something which goes directly against the fundamen- tal right to freedom of expression." The criticism she endured over the passport scheme did more than just expose a certain hypocrisy in the Labour camp. Metsola suggests it also revealed the Labour Party's deep-seated suspicion of the EU as a conglomeration of 'foreigners' intent on harming Malta. Patriotic knee-jerk reactions that claimed to 'defend the national interest' were ultimately steeped in the same old isolationist views that had first prompted Labour to campaign against EU accession. "If the Labour Party still views the European Parliament as an institu- tion full of 'foreigners', it resonates as a reflection of its original anti-EU stance," Metsola reasons, coming back to her earlier point about how Maltese issues are in fact European, and vice versa. But at the same time, the outcome of the European Parliament's cen- sure was that the scheme went ahead regardless, albeit with modifica- tions that do not really address the concerns raised by the EP. Doesn't this also confirm that actions by the EP – and, by extension, its members – are ultimately ineffective? Once again, Metsola disagrees. "I would have preferred a five-year residence period instead of only one year; but once there is a tangible link between the applicant and the country, it no longer remains the same." The changes – which she reminds me that the PN had all along been proposing – were eventually made under pressure from Europe… putting paid to any criticism that the EP vote made no difference at all. And the difference it made, she continues, was crucial in that it ad- dressed the underlying principle at stake. "Before, in the scheme as it was originally presented, the only fac- tor was money. What message does this send out to Europe? That it's okay for rich people to buy Euro- pean nationality, but not okay when poor people wash up here on a rick- ety boat, after risking their lives at sea?" All the same, it remains a fact that Malta's contingent consists of only six MEPs out of a total of 751. And the same polls which place Metsola ahead in the race, also indicate a higher than usual percentage of By Raphael Vassallo TRAITORS Who is Did the PN call Joseph Muscat a traitor when he tried to block funding for the Sant' Antin waste recycling plant? Did we claim he was attacking Malta? LOCAL CAMPAIGN Let's not forget that the PN spoke about European issues in the first MEP election… and lost maltatoday, SUNDAY, 11 MAY 2014 EU issues are Maltese issues too