Citizenship programme is about ‘generational responsibility’, PM declares

In a fiery speech reminiscent of the electoral campaign, Joseph Muscat took Simon Busuttil to task over "choosing to act against Malta when in the past he defended other countries".

The Prime Minister was speaking during a political activity in Fgura, which turned out to be a mini mass meeting. Due to the amount of party faithful who congregated outside the PL club, the Zabbar road had to be closed.

Muscat said the Opposition leader had defended other countries from being singled out by the European Parliament over matters of national sovereignty.

During a 2011 debate on Hungary's constitution, then MEP Busuttil said the EP debate was flawed because it singled out a member state and discussed a matter of national issue that was sovereign.

At the time, Busuttil had argued that the EP, if anything, had to debate the constitution of every member state. He had said, that it was not the EP's competence to single out a member state, sending out the wrong signal "that we stand to be accused of political instrumentalisation."

Busuttil had said that such a debate would be unprecedented and would undermine the citizens' trust in the European institutions.

"Yet this week we witnessed one of the few occasions where the European Parliament spoke and singled out a country. When this happened before, other countries spoke out about how unfair it was. And Simon Busuttil had been one of them," the PM said today.

This week, the European Parliament approved a cross-party resolution, with an overwhelming majority, that called on Malta to amend its citizenship-by-investment scheme, the Individual Investor Programme.

Amendments pushed forward by the Socialist Group to remove any direct reference to Malta were not approved.

Reacting to repeated calls by the PN that the EP vote could not be ignored, Muscat said it was the 2013 electoral results which the citizens had not ignored.

He insisted that Busuttil had to shoulder responsibility for his actions: "He defended other countries but he chose to work against Malta. However, I am comforted by the fact that this programme will change the face of the country. It will attract investment and will help us build a country for years to come."

Making his pitch, Muscat urged his audience "to imagine what €1,000 million could do... what wealth we could create in five years with an amount that usually takes 15 years to come in."

He said, his government had the "generational responsibility" to create a better future where poverty is eradicated, life-saving expensive medicinal is provided for free and socio-economic infrastructure is "future ready".

"The IIP is not about the scheme itself but about this government's goal to see Malta moving forward. We don't want to lag behind our competitors; we don't want to be average good. We want to be on the forefront."

Muscat said it was a "generational duty" to see that Malta is prepared for future generations. He argued that Malta was at a critical situation with a socio-economic of infrastructure "of decades past".

"The traditional society of the husband providing for his family and the stay-at-home wife is over. We have a new socio-economic reality which this country is not adequately prepared to. We have to be a model for a modern society, for how competitive we are, for the way jobs are created. We have to be innovative and we have to fight for civil rights."

The Labour leader said "history was calling on the government" to change the country, "and like all changes, there will be opposition".