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| SUNDAY • 13 MAY 2018 maltatoday 7 NEWS KARL AZZOPARDI THE American security print- er Crane Currency will be moving its Swedish banknote printing operations to Malta by the end of the year. Crane Currency, which un- til recently printed Swedish banknotes in Tumba, Sweden, had acquired the print offices from the Sveriges Riksbank in 2002 for €15 million. Tumba Bruk, the company owned by Sveriges Riksbank, have been responsible for printing krona banknotes since 1750. Crane said that it planned to close down the printing company in Tumba, central- ising all bank statements to Malta. "A competitive market in combination with existing infrastructure at the Tumba plant has forced us to present this difficult but necessary plan for Crane Currency," president Annemarie Watson said. Thomas Lundberg, Riksbank press officer, expressed his disappointment at the trans- fer, claiming that a part of the region's heritage had been lost. "It's a bit of a banknote story that goes into the grave here," Lundberg said. Crane managing director Anders Blomberg said ne- gotiations have already been initiated with 170 employees already notified. The transfer of banknote production from Sweden to Malta was a shock to the Tumba community, after the town was told back in 2001 that Crane's acquisition of the facility would not result in their closure. Swedish Krona has been in circulation for hundreds of years, but Sweden is predict- ed to be a 'cash-free' country within the next half a decade. Cash transactions in Sweden amount to only 2% of the value of all payments made in Swe- den, with the figure expected to drop below 0.5 percent by the next five years. A study by Visa showed that Swedes use their debit cards three times the European average, with some 207 pay- ments per card in 2015, com- pared to France where the fig- ure was 141. JAM ES DEBONO THE Maltese consume an- nually over three kilograms of rabbit each, according to a report issued by the Eu- ropean Commission's Food and Veterinary Services. This makes rabbit consump- tion in Malta higher than an- ywhere else in Europe. The runners-up are inhab- itants of Spain and Portugal who consume between one kilogram and 1.5 kilograms a year followed by the French and Italians (0.5 kilogram to one kilogram) and the Belgians and Germans (0.1 kilogram to 0.5 kilogram). Rabbit consumption is of less than 0.1 kilogram per person in all other EU mem- ber states. A total of 550,000 rabbits were slaughtered in Malta in 2016. Of these 500,000 were sourced from backyard farms while 50,000 were sourced by commercial es- tablishments with approved slaughter houses. While in the whole Eu- ropean Union 66% of all slaughtered rabbits were sourced from approved slaughter houses, in Malta 91% are sourced from back- yard farms. Despite the island's small size more rabbits were slaughtered in Malta than in 17 other EU countries. For example in the UK 100,000 rabbits were slaugh- tered, a fifth of the amount killed in Malta. The report refers to a "continuous decline" in the consumption of rabbit meat in the EU which is linked to changes in consumer habits towards convenience foods and the increased percep- tion of the rabbit as pets. But consumption may be picking up among some consumers due to health and sustainability concerns. In 2011 the Maltese gov- ernment had agreed with the European Commission that producers can still slaughter their rabbits on their premises if they hold less than 50 female breed- ing rabbits (does). On the other hand, rabbits in farms with more than 50 does have to slaughter rabbits in approved slaughterhouses which conform to EU ani- mal welfare standards. It's official: Maltese are highest consumers of rabbit in Europe We've got the rabbit habit IMPORTANT On Sunday 6 May, a Ministry of Finance advert was mistakenly published in MaltaToday. The advert had in fact already been published previously and was no longer valid. On behalf of the client, we apologise to our readers for this oversight. TIA RELJIC THE magistrate leading the in- quiry in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia is being touted for the role of judge. Four new judges are expected to be appointed in the coming days, in a bid to strengthen the judiciary. One of the posts is expected to be filled by Magistrate An- thony Vella, a move that would create a vacancy for the inquir- ing magistrate in the Caruana Galizia murder case. The new set of appointments will see a new judge for Gozo, as well as another judge for the family court. Since the appointment of Jo- seph Azzopardi as Chief Justice after the retirement of Silvio Camilleri, a new judge will be appointed to deal with back- logs of judgements from civil claims. Another judge will be as- signed to criminal law cases. Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera is another name now touted to be a probable candi- date for one of the posts. Recently, Scerri Herrera was elected by her peers in the Court of Magistrates to take one of the two magistrates' posts in the same Commission for the Administration of Jus- tice. The other elected magis- trate to the Commission was Doreen Clarke. Judges Tonio Mallia and Noel Cuschieri were themselves elected by their own peers to sit on the Commission. When recently the judicial appointments commission cleared Consuelo Scerri Her- rera for promotion, she was kept behind, ostensibly because senior judges felt it was not yet time for the appointment. But a government source had told this newspaper that her promo- tion would happen once Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri retires. Since 2013, the Labour gov- ernment has appointed nine magistrates, two judges, and promoted four magistrates to the judiciary. Scerri Herrera touted for promotion Crane brings Swedish krona banknote printing to Malta