The root of Labour’s catastrophic thinking is that it has no sense of esprit de corps about EU membership, and no qualms about letting the side down
My first reaction when I heard the news that Labour planned to sell EU passports was: ‘But how can they even think of doing that? What about the other member states? Imagine if everyone had to behave the same way and start selling EU passports – what would happen then?’
One of the most remarkable things about the people in the Labour Party, and especially its leaders and prime movers, is that they have absolutely no sense of esprit de corps or understanding of what it means.
They were not in the army (a proper army), they did not go to the sort of school where letting down members of your group or team puts you completely beyond the pale, they were not trained at home (clearly) in understanding their obligations towards others, and to make matters worse, Muscat was raised as an only child, at home and not at boarding-school, and literally has no understanding of how to think and operate as part of a whole, with loyalties towards others.
Belonging to a club of states means that everyone has to cooperate beyond the letter of what the law says we can and can’t do. Yes, EU laws allows member states sovereignty on the granting of citizenship, but the unspoken understanding is that no members are going to let the side down by selling EU passports for cash, allowing buyers the free run of other member states.
The European Commission itself is unable to stop this, but this does not mean that Malta is not going to have trouble at a bilateral level with individual member states. The anger is palpable already in the newspaper coverage carried in those very countries where Maltese-passport buyers will actually be aiming to live: Germany, France and Britain.
I’d like to see Muscat walk into his next EU Council meeting with his talk of ultimatums and cope with the reaction he is going to get from his fellow prime ministers.
The influential Italian news website EU News, in its English language edition, carries an opinion piece which is quite telling.
Marco Frisone writes: “It is clear this initiative also has consequences at a (EU) community level. If other countries take steps similar to the Maltese ones, using the ‘sale’ of citizenship as a tool to clean up balance sheets or ’round up’ the national income, at this point the situation would become anything but insignificant, even for European institutions.”
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http://www.eunews.it/en/2013/11/13/malta-is-selling-european-citizenship/10533
It’s painfully reflective of the idiocy when choosing to remain a Eurosceptic and accept membership at the same time.
The paradox being that individual member states will react along national boundaries. Vicious cycle; we don’t like Europe, let’s damage each other to prove we’re right.
Not to mention the minor issue with Muscat confirming himself an embarrassment for the PSE. I have no idea how Labour can still be a member of that group.
Ask Martin Schulz and Hans Swoboda. Didn’t they endorse Muscat?
I’d like a journalist to stick a microphone in Francois (Baxxter, did I get that right?) Hollande’s face and ask him what he thinks about Joseph Muscat’s Citizenship Sale scheme in the light of Hollande’s endorsement of Muscat and his declarations about tax havens and his government’s tough tax measures in France.
Yes you got it right. And he’d probably reply, “Muscat who?”
And did anyone tell him Joseph Muscat makes Marine Le Pen look like a social democrat?
Simply put, Malta is exploiting its EU membership at the expense of other member states.
It will now take the EU to tame free-riders and act for the EU public good.
Malta’s entrenched system of patronage and clientelism has rendered us unable to be entrepreneurial – to be productive and cater for ourselves – rather than be catered for.
it is the only way we can push our way through getting the hell out of the EU. And this is coming from someone who voted for EU accession back then in 2003. I was obviously wrong.
Soviet collapse was unthinkable in 1985.
Same thing will happen with the EU.
my point ? the faster we restore to full sovereignity the better off we will be in the medium to long term.
The European union is headed by bureaucrats who are not answerable to the people. They are entrusted with an agenda and strategy which is solely to the benefit of the Bankers.
[Daphne – There are sites which cater to your particular fetish. This is not the one for you; you will find yourself lonely. Kevin Ellul Bonici will direct you accordingly.]
Only a petty mind can blow this issue out of proportion.
Here’s from the EUobserver:
Austria hands out its EU passport to people who make a €3 million donation to charity or a €10 million investment in the country.
Portugal’s “Golden Residence Permit” gives people who invest €1 million or more the chance to get a passport after five years. Spain and the UK also sell residency, but not citizenship, to wealthy outsiders.
Meanwhile, the Cypriot President earlier this year said anyone who lost €3 million or more in the EU bail-out can get fast-track citizenship.
[…]
According to the latest EU statistics, the UK grants the most new passports each year (177,565 in 2010), followed by France (114,599), Spain (114,584), Germany (109,594), Italy (56,153), the Czech Republic (36,012), Belgium (29,786), the Netherlands (28,598) and Portugal (23,238).
Malta handed out 1,080 in the same year.
http://euobserver.com/justice/122101