New Year’s Day headline in The Independent (London): A Greek archipelago for €8.5m, a Maltese passport for €1m and Polish castles going for a song… welcome to the great European fire sale
Does “the Maltese government led by the socialist Joseph Muscat” (to quote El Pais) still believe – along with David Curmi at the Chamber of Commerce and Joe Bannister at the Malta Financial Services Authority – that tacking on the requirement to rent a flat and hold Maltese stocks for five years was going to stop the world thinking that Malta is selling passports because its economy is in crisis?
If so, they’ve got their heads firmly stuck in the sand or up somewhere else. If at all possible, the fresh spate of international coverage is even worse than the first tranche, because now that the dust has settled and the facts have sunk in, it’s even more disparaging.
This article in The Independent (London), published today, begins:
For a non-EU citizen with dreams of the good life and a few million in the bank, 2014 could be a good year. First, snap up Maltese citizenship, and thus a European Union passport, for €1.15m (£960,000). Then splurge on a former cardinal’s villa in Italy as the principle residence. For a fairytale winter getaway, Polish castles are going for a song. And what could be better for a summer bolt-hole than a Greek archipelago, a snip at €8.5m?
Europe’s fire sale, which began as the economic crisis forced governments to find innovative ways to plug holes in their dwindling budgets, has reached new heights as ever-more intriguing state assets are touted for sale.
But a backlash is brewing, with governments and enraged citizens clashing over exactly who has the right to flog a nation’s history and culture.
The Maltese passport bonanza has provoked public outcry and forced the government to rethink its plans. Outraged locals have scuppered the sale of an Italian island to a businessman from New Zealand. Even if governments can overcome political opposition to “selling the family silver”, the privatisation expert Professor William Megginson says they face an array of hurdles ranging from a simple lack of interest in unattractive state assets to hazy ownership rights.
Read the rest in the link below.
Meanwhile, for those who don’t understand the meaning or significance of ‘fire sale’, which is the key term in that headline, here it is. A fire sale is when things are sold at prices slashed to rock bottom, generally when the holder faces bankruptcy, foreclosure, the end of business or other extreme pressure. The origin of the term is in the forced sales held when warehouses suffered fire damage and the goods they contained were sold off for next to nothing to enable the business to get back on its feet.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/a-greek-archipelago-for-85m-a-maltese-passport-for-1m-and-polish-castles-going-for-a-song-welcome-to-the-great-european-fire-sale-9032981.html
‘….exactly who has the right to flog a nation’s history and culture.’ I’ll tell you who – the MLP who seem to have made this the party policy since Mintoff’s and KMB’s nightmare years in government.
Funnily enough it’s what the Maltese popolin have come to expect and accept. I sincerely hope that the ‘backlash’ that’s ‘brewing’ will consist of the slowly awakening realization in this same social group that the party they put in government is going to screw them right and proper where it bothers them most – their pockets.
Hopefully they’ll plug the holes from where their grey matter has leaked out.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/a-greek-archipelago-for-85m-a-maltese-passport-for-1m-and-polish-castles-going-for-a-song-welcome-to-the-great-european-fire-sale-9032981.html