'Pardon granted to facilitate investigation’ – Busuttil

Simon Busuttil brushed off questions about the presidential pardon granted to George Farrugia last Friday saying, “We do not talk about cases of corruption at party activities. The pardon was granted to facilitate the investigation.”

Busuttil was equally dismissive about the cryptic e-mails mentioning an ‘A.G’ exposed by a Sunday paper, saying that the persons who signed those emails do not speak for the Nationalist Party.

Busuttil was speaking at a press conference held this afternoon at Hal Far. Finance minister Tonio Fenech and Frank Engler, a European parliamentarian from the Christian democrats EPP group were also present.

Engler said that lately most of the economic news coming out of the European Mediterranean region has been bad. Hailing the performance of the Maltese economy as an “edifying sight,” Engler was pleased to note that Malta had not succumbed to any externally imposed austerity measures.

“Had Malta not joined the EU and euro-zone, it would have been swept away in a pan-European currency war. The economic figures speak for themselves really, Malta is on solid economic foundations.”

Proving to be extremely well versed on the political situation in Malta, Engler went on to say that the “Cypriot alternative” had gone wrong. “Since 2007 an additional 50% of public debt has been piled onto the existing amount during the tenure of a socialist government.”

His “parliamentary colleague” Simon Busuttil hailed the €1.1 billion granted to Malta by the EU as being “impressive and without precedent.” Busuttil fired off a list of projects that have been co-financed by the EU, among them the new ICT faculty at the University of Malta and Oncology hospital at Mater Dei.

Busuttil said that if Joseph Muscat had his way over EU membership, none of these projects would have happened.

Tonio Fenech noted that both economic growth and employment levels had been above the EU average during the financial and economic crises. He put this down to the government’s decisive action in intervening in the economic and saving jobs during the height of the crises.