The liberal conservative | Edward Scicluna

Professor Edward Scicluna is cool and collected as we sit down for the interview in his sparse but neatly kept office in Naxxar.

“It’s so much better than Valletta with all its logistical problems,” he tells me, and for one who is always stressed to find a good parking place, I have to agree.

We immediately tackle the Delimara power station extension issue, and I ask him for his take on the environmental and economic issues involved in the choice of Scandinavian firm BWSC as contractor.

“As you say there are two issues, the environmental one, and the financial and administrative one. As far as I know, there are procedures in place to deal with irregularities at the European Investment Bank with regard to any reporting of financial impropriety, and if something is found out then the case is reported to OLAF (Europe’s anti-fraud office) which takes action accordingly. In fact we have already been hit by the EU anti- fraud office with regards to the student funding programmes as it was their decision to report irregularities.

“With regard to the power station contract, there is no doubt that this is being taken up but it is not use talking about it unless a decision.”

Scicluna stresses that the environmental issue is also being dealt with within a wider context of reducing emissions across the board.

“On this issue I am again waiting for the outcome of the investigations, and will speak when I have the facts in hand. It is early days at the moment.”

Moving on to the much publicized spat on the Cashman report, Scicluna insists that John Attard Montalto and himself had actually attempted to have the clauses in relation to abortion removed from it.

“Without referring to abortion for the moment, many times we vote in favour or against an amendment and the outcome of the vote goes against our wishes. But if you are in favour of the report in general, you generally vote in favour and in this report we had to agree with cutting poverty in a substantial manner, and minimizing child mortality. After all, the Millennium Development Goals were set up by the United Nations and even the Pope himself issued a document last year where he spoke about the importance of reducing poverty around the world. How can I vote against a document whose purpose is to warn governments to wake up and to start working hard to reach targets in five year’s time?”

Scicluna explains that most of these reports make reference to woman’s reproductive rights and in these cases, the Labour MEPS vote against the inclusion of such clauses. So what happened in this case?

“In this particular case, the paragraph in question was split into four parts and we (Scicluna and Attard Montalto) voted against their inclusion. So our point was made but as you know, most countries in Europe are in favour of abortion so our vote could not pass.

One also has to keep in mind that the document does not actually encourage abortion but attempts to make abortion safer in developing countries. So when we came to voting on the whole report, we felt we had to vote in favour, and it is laughable that our colleagues in Parliament have tried to deviate the issue using malicious means”.

The news item on NET TV portrayed an unborn foetus, which Scicluna claims gave the impression that abortion was actually being encouraged by the Labour MEPs, which was very far from the truth.

We move on to the poverty issue, where according to a Eurobarometer survey, 61% of Maltese are finding difficulty in keeping up with their bills.

“This is the missing link which solves my puzzle. When I recently spoke at a public meeting in St Julian’s on the effects of the recession I said that the thesis being propagated is that Malta was the least affected by the recession. When I examined the issue and produced statistics, the effects on the economy really look to be positive; however, when you examine the actual figures, the situation is alarming. We had the highest fall in exports in 2009, and also had the second highest drop in tourism in the EU after Cyprus. The same goes for other sectors such as retail, sales and construction and my hunch is that many of the firms which were and still are suffering do not want to speak out on their woes as the island is full of politics and perceptions”.

Scicluna explains that he could not measure the impact of the recession on households as people were reluctant to admit poverty.

“For me, this is the key which demonstrates that we were badly hit by the recession. Of course if you don’t look, you don’t see, but the EU wanted to look and found out the true extent of the problem. Apart from that, government cannot talk of a stimulus package when we actually reduced the deficit during a recession – something which is unheard of.”

Scicluna is well-known for his conservative fiscal views and my next question was how he could reconcile these views with Labour leader Joseph Muscat – who has repeatedly promised free health services for all, as well as expansion of welfare programmes and the retention of stipends for post secondary students.

He evades the question and says: “Austerity programmes are currently in force all over Europe, but to my mind this is a big mistake, as those who abused the financial system have disappeared and the lower income worker will, as usual, have to foot the bill. This is the reason why the Socialists are in favour of taxes on banks as austerity measures have to be fair and across the board. The UK government has said that its programme of budget cuts is fair but that remains to be seen. Other countries have cut several public sector salaries and costs but in Malta, not one cent has been cut from government’s operational expenditure”.