Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/920426
maltatoday SUNDAY 31 DECEMBER 2017 Interview 14 By Raphael Vassallo 2017 wasn't a particularly good year for Malta's international rep- utation. Already in the European limelight over the 2016 Panama Papers revelations, the country was placed under even greater scrutiny in the aftermath of the most calamitous event of the year: the killing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia by a car-bomb last October. In a sense, it is as though that event forced us all – and the rest of the world – to take a longer and harder look at this otherwise peaceful, mostly un- eventful country of ours. Would you agree with the assessment that 2017 was something of a wa- tershed year in that sense? I wouldn't say it was a particularly dramatic year. The most dramatic event, of course, was [the murder of] Daphne... we were all shocked; we had all got used to her eccen- tricities... and the beauty of some of her journalism. She was a very good journalist, there is no ques- tion about it. She touched on issues without the usual manner in which we benignly look at misdemeanours in this country. She didn't have that attitude at all. She was not half as benign as the rest of us often are in our reaction to things that are nor- mally considered 'wrong' in other countries. So she touched a lot of raw nerves. And it's sad, shocking, that she went the way she did. But there's also a certain exaggeration going on now, on both sides. The re- action is usually overblown. Nobody can say that Daphne was killed be- cause there is repression of freedom of speech in Malta. There's none of that in this country; we're not like that.... Unless you take into considera- tion the over-use of the libel card in Malta. Murdering a journalist might be an exceptional event... but wouldn't you agree there is a tendency to silence the press in other ways? I was sued for libel in the UK, by Dom Mintoff. And I had the paper backing me... otherwise I wouldn't have survived, because the le- gal costs there are so huge. In one case, our legal charges went up to STG250,000. If we lost, we would have had to pay up half a million quid. And God knows what the damages would have been. But in the end we reached an out-of-court agreement, and paid Dom Mint- off 60,000. That was big money, in those days. One of the reasons why people are so liberal in filing libel charges in [Maltese] courts, is that the costs are relatively very low. And then people are shocked, because you use all the cards given to you by the libel laws. They shouldn't be shocked. If you libel somebody, and he slaps some kind of writ or injunc- tion against you... a garnishee order, perhaps... you shouldn't be shocked. You should be careful what to write. I'm of the generation where eve- rything that we wrote had to go through the lawyers first. Every- thing that is written in the FT, every day, goes to the legal department before being published. Everything: even the most minimal of sugges- tions. Now, the FT is not known for shaking tree-tops. We used to work to a different language: we say 'may' instead of 'must'; 'might' instead of 'should'. But even so; everything still goes through the lawyers. Here, nothing goes through the lawyers... except when it's already too late. All the same, there is undeniably the perception that freedom of speech is somehow under threat in Malta. Not to mention a per- ceived collapse in rule of law, and perceptions of institutionalised corruption. There have even been discussions about these issues in the European Parliament, result- ing in a fact-finding EP delegation last month... The European Parliament, as you know, counts for nothing really. It counts for a hill of beans. And let's face it: the European Union is not exactly unknown for corruption. It is hugely corrupt: the spending that goes on is incredible. Neither is it renowned for its upkeep of the rule of law. One journalist friend of mine, German, was arrested by the Belgian police for disclosing cor- ruption within Eurostat. Another friend, also German, was arrested because he disclosed the names of 12 Greeks who had Swiss bank ac- counts, and were not paying tax. Both these arrests were carried out at the instigation of the European Commission. Where was the rule of law? All the same, in our case, all the fuss is being made by the European Parliament, not the Commission. The main concern of the European Commission is that, if they had to start seriously dealing with corrup- tion... never mind that there is cor- ruption within the EU itself; in eve- ry member state, you could come up with an entire litany of cases of huge corruption. And I mean huge corruption... not like ours. If you do business in London, and start dealing with the City, you've got to know who you're dealing with, and what you're doing. Because you'll get ripped off like crazy. There's a lot of it going on... and it's institu- tionalised. Everywhere. In France, in Germany... what do you expect the Commission to do? Start closing down all its member states? This raises what many find to be a sore point. European institutions seem to come down very heavily on Malta, over issues that are also commonplace in other member states. One example would be the flak we got for the IIP scheme, when variations of the same scheme exist all over Europe... It's because we're a successful country. They've been trying to close down our financial centre for years. I used to be in Brussels, and everyone would ask me: 'What are you doing there in Malta? Are you funnelling Gaddafi's money into Europe?' There was always this sin- ister outlook, because they couldn't understand how such a small coun- try could do so well. At one time, we were taking business away from Ireland: which used to be one of the more successful financial centres. That's something, you know. How do you that? Because you have very good brains, who come up with very good legislation, and can beat the best at their own game. And we are good at the game. We've never had cash problems in Malta. We've had investment problems, yes, but no re- al cash problems. Unlike France, for instance. Nobody touches France, but France has been in breach of the Maastricht criteria since the Maas- tricht agreement. They have always run a huge deficit, far beyond the limits that are imposed on everyone else... There is also the example of Ger- many breaching the Stability and Growth Pact: resulting in the dis- mantling of the pact itself... The reality is that the Euro was created for the benefit of France and Germany. Everyone rues the decision now. Go to Italy, Greece, and you will find many people – including many journalists – who would willingly leave the eurozone tomorrow, if they were given the chance. Because the euro has been a failure. It's fair-weather currency: once there's a storm in the global markets, it collapses. Yet we have been successful. Coming back to the flak we're getting at European level: if you notice, it always comes from people who were less suc- cessful. Antonio Tajani? He never got elected to anything. He ran for mayor of Rome, and failed. He con- tested general elections with Silvio Berlusconi, and failed. Then he was given a job at the Commission. Ana Gomes [head of the EP delegation to Malta} is from Portugal: a much big- ger country, that has been much less successful than Malta. These people who attack us are failures. I won't use the word 'envious'... but they don't like seeing small countries be- ing successful.... There is, however, a pitfall with that argument. Economic suc- cess may be an end in itself, but the end doesn't always justify the means. What if there is truth to some of the suspicions of corrup- tion, money-laundering, etc? Do we resign to that as an inevitable consequence of success? No, but that's where having strong media comes into the picture. It's up to the media to get to the bottom of things. And to do that, it needs mus- cle. If you really want to be account- If you libel somebody, and he slaps some kind of writ or injunction against you... a garnishee order, perhaps... you shouldn't be shocked. You should be careful what to write RESPONSIBILITY These people who attack us are failures. I won't use the word 'envious'... but they don't like seeing small countries being successful SUCCESS Punished for success