Oh dear God. Now The Financial Times has dedicated its editorial to the subject of Joseph Muscat’s crazy, money-grabbing scheme
From The Financial Times editorial (leading article) this evening:
One EU state – Malta – is now undercutting the passport market like no other. It has declared that it will sell a Maltese passport to anyone who pays €650,000. Applicants will be tested to ensure, among other things, that they are not terrorists or money launderers. But if that test is passed, the passport is handed over immediately. It appears that no prior residency or connection to the island is needed.
Malta’s action should prompt disquiet across the EU. A Chinese or Russian national who gains a Maltese passport automatically acquires residency rights across the 28-nation bloc. The idea that this person need have no prior residence in, or connection, to Malta is unacceptable and is bound to raise security concerns.
54 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4468fc86-6198-11e3-916e-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2n6Rd1zlx
This is the editorial of one of the most influential business newspapers read by every serious entrepreneur, banker and above all investor. What Malta has managed to build up in the last twenty years is being destroyed in a couple of months.
And while Malta’s reputation goes up in flames our very own Joseph plays with his fifra.
He’s biding his time hoping that all this hue and cry in the international press will blow over – and then decide what to do. I hope he realizes now that no such thing is going to happen and that in fact it will only get worse.
I say. Simon Busuttil writes rather well.
I am looking forward to seeing the damage limitation that our newly installed High Commissioner in London will manage to achieve, if at all.
Maybe he can tempt the Financial Times editorial staff with with a cruise on the MSC Poesia, courtesy of Joey.
Jorganizza lejla Maltija bil-pastizzi, gbejniet u galletti.
Trid tibda’ b’quddiesa…
I’m sure he was right on the phone with Scott Mills from BBC complaining about FT and asking for the song with the most appropriate lyrics to put his message – and that of the Govt – across.
“The idea that this person need have no prior residence in, or connection, to Malta is unacceptable and is bound to raise security concerns.”
Looks like Joseph Muscat should have invested in a read of “the Briksa.”
There. We have it. From the Financial Times: the whole concept “is unacceptable.”
His graciousness at the EU and in Foreign policy will have been well noted. I would say he’s dead where it counts.
Any takers of the system buy into a tainted reputation.
I wouldn’t advise accepting to sit at that negotiating table any longer. The goods and intangibles are toxic.
Negotiation with Muscat is literally a nonstarter.
Hlief jaqa ghan-nejk ghadu m’ghamilx is-Sur Muscat. U dawk kollha li vvutawlu ukoll.
Those Nationalists have their evil saboteurs all over the world.
There they go again those Nationalists – orchestrating the international media to do their bidding. Is their no end to their nefariousness?
The editorial board of The Financial Times should have consulted PBS to evaluate what is news value.
Tested for terrorists or money laundering, as if any of the two goes round with a tag round his neck “
As if terrorists in countries like Libya, Tunisia, Syria or Egypt have police conduct reports that are trustworthy. No offence to the people of that country, but a mercenary isn’t exactly going to go down on certain records after such a violent regime change.
And what about those terrorists or criminals who are close to their governments?
Call me paranoid, but it all sounds too risky.
Taste the coffee, Joseph Muscat.
Please don’t remind me of that episode when he wanted to send those poor people back as some sort of attention seeking tactic.
It was bad enough I thought those people were being sent to their deaths, but to then hear that it was all some sort of morbid plan to get people’s attention made it all so much worse.
In my opinion someone should have had Muscat’s mental health checked after that stunt.
When someone waves a cocked and loaded gun around just to get people’s attention, that person needs help. Likewise I think that when a PM threatens to send innocent people to their death just to get the attention of the EU, he is mentally unstable.
Edward, I think you’re dead right about that mental health check. There is something decidedly off about him, in particular. The dinosaurs have already been certified.
I don’t think he’s mentally unstable. I just believe that he has an overweening sense of his own importance and entitlement and some clear sociopathic tendencies.
But he does know right from wrong and he knows that he is in the wrong. Witness his tendency to defend himself and his ideas by saying that the Nationalists did the same thing etc.
It is sad how the reputation that Malta had managed to build up over 25 years can be destroyed in as many days.
The political history of the last sixty years.
PN builds.
PL demolishes.
The latter activity is much easier than the former.
It has been the PN’s mission to clear up after Labour whenever they were in power: after the mess of the 1950s, another bigger mess in the 1970s-80s, a short-lived but substantial damaging mess in the 1990s and doubtlessly it will have to do the same after this arrogant and useless lot bow out, hopefully sooner than later.
Less than a year to destroy the twenty years of hard work.
And the half nitwits of La-la Land on Times of Malta’s comments board still believe that the international media are orchestrated by the Opposition in Malta. What a tragedy.
Curt, brutal, like a point blank shot, this is the last but probably the scariest and most damaging article ever.
And now you will soon get Minister Scicluna to say that the FT got it wrong as well.
Yes he calls this a marketing mishap. Let us all hope that the budget which has been lately drawn up has nothing to do with marketing.
@Noel Buttigieg Scicluna
He will consult with the Cock Commissioner
The situation is now such that I feel it is incumbent on the leader of the opposition to divest himself publicly of any interest in the matter whatsoever.
Malta is fast heading for the international cesspit and Joey and Joey alone has the onus of getting us out of it in the same way that he led us into it.
Simon, pull out before they will find some way to compromise you in this unmitigated disaster for our country. They are masters of fraud and soon they will put the blame for this national tragedy on you.
Get out of it …fast.
Which is why Simon Busuttil issued his statement yesterday morning that basically both the Opposition and the MFSA have been insisting for meetings which dates haven’t been set.
The statement came not a moment too soon, although somehow it didn’t make any front page.
And he has the audacity to blame others for tarnishing Malta’s reputation.
He is no better than the hunter who blames bird life that his illegal bird killing is covered by international media.
What the hack!
It’s all moved so rapidly now beyond ‘that’ point, the point of reportage and exposure that SCREAMED “what the hell were, or are you thinking?”
Government-Opposition talks are officially ‘on hold’, while Joey is in South Africa on yet another tax-paid jolly, posturing with his ample, fat chin, and acting like the IIP, still, is NOT an issue, as he weeps for Mandela like he EVER gave a shit. He never gave a shit, for eff’s sake.
We read the papers, Daphne’s Notebook, comment, have a laugh sometimes at the expense of these imbeciles, but bloody hell! Is it really another 4 years?
Personally I think they won’t last the winter. But that’s just me.
Minn fommok l-Alla.
Qabel jara lil Malta ghall-irkuptejha ma jkunx kuntent.
Feel like I should apologise for a rant like that, but this whole thing – I mean the MLP in government – is just surreal. In the SCARY way. Surreal because, by and large, people are so accepting of it all, with no bloody questions asked.
Get me a whisky, somebody.
They ask no questions because it is the MLP in government and, being basically afraid of MLP, they just want to be left alone. And some of them collaborated to bring about the change just for the sake of changing. Idiots.
… and just a couple of days ago he had the brass neck to condemn “politicians who taint Malta’s image in the international media”.
This was a clear reference to MEP Roberta Metsola’s uploading of Finance Minister Scicluna’s (in)famous reply at an EU meeting concerning the sale of Maltese passports.
It is he who concocted the IIP scheme and rushed it through a Parliamentary vote by all his MPs to make it law.
Wow, the long arm of the PN.
Cringe, switchers, cringe.
“MASSIVE”
This article is the iceberg to our Titanic
Precisely so. And with the major difference that Joseph Muscat was alerted to it immediately when he finally unwrapped the details of his “roadmap” on this issue.
He must have had an indication of a fraction of the impending negative impact, otherwise why did he keep it hidden from his voters?
A fraudulent move, designed on the back of results of a fraudulent campaign.
The residence requirements for UK Citizenship is not 180 days inside UK per year for 5 years; it is 275 days per year for 5 years.
Besides, in addition to the residence requirement, one will have to pass the “Life in UK test”, which includes language proficiency and ties to the local community, for UK citizenship.
Try to compare this with the Malta programme devised by Henley and Partners.
Malta had recently started to score a number of direct hits in financial services, companies leaving the City specifically to relocate here.
The editorial on the Financial Times is the UK government’s agenda. We’ve given them the weapon to scare the industry, one subdued to perception, away from us.
Muscat has a lot to answer for, I don’t think this point has been emphasized enough.
Going by Professor Bannister’s blunt statement, who’s not one to involve himself in political maneouvres, the sense of urgency is clear. Muscat must at this point rescind any further insistence on this folly and bring back some sanity and decency, before rumours flare.
The buck stops with Muscat, not his fake consensus.
If Simon Busuttil kept quiet about the passport sale, we wouldn’t be reading this.
It follows that Simon Busuttil is tarnishing Malta’s reputation.
All considered, I think that the Opposition should in no way take part in talks about this citizenship law. They should leave Muscat and his miserable lot to sort it out.
I feel that the repercussions at EU level are going to be enormous and I think it will not be long before Europe tells Joey to kill that law, or else.
Also featured on the guardian news:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2013/dec/10/want-to-buy-citizenship-super-rich-malta-passports
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2013/dec/10/want-to-buy-citizenship-super-rich-malta-passports
From today’s Guardian online…..
So embarrassing – makes me want to sell my own passport.
Britain’s Channel 4 News has an article on their website: Cash for passports – what is the best deal
Checkmate. Call it a day Joseph Muscat. If you have any sense of self respect that is. You do not have what it takes. I shudder to think how you would act in a real crises when you can make such a mess in peacetime.
I have read the Financial Times every day for the last 12 years. It’s my job, after all (not reading the paper, but keeping up to date with the markets).
It’s a left-leaning newspaper that bends backwards (like The Economist does) to accommodate left-leaning leaders.
Congratulations, Dr Muscat. You’ve also pissed off your socialist backers abroad.