Exactly. Quite the experts at putting assets out of sight.

Chris Kalin must have become the prime minister while we weren’t looking.

Chris Kalin accompanied the Maltese delegation to ensure that no concessions which could affect Henley and something’s future income were made. The Commission should have refused to allow a private individual with such a clear pecuniary interest to attend the meeting.

Was Henley & Partners there in Manwel Mallia’s place, in Louis Grech’s place or in Cris Cardona’s place?

It’s easy to say “Malta Government,” but where does this IIP scam actually fall?

I’m sure another enlightened Press Release in this regard will be faster in the rush to clarity than the terms of the “agreement” and their full implications.

No doubt, it will be “under Joseph Muscat?” And that, is the only reason for which funds go into a meta-mixed-use “Development Fund.” Not because the common good was in mind, but because to have such funds enter under one Ministry or another would be to lend definition to the blur he intended to play upon in order for this scam to go through at EU level.

It is inadmissible that the contract between Henley and Partners with the Labour Party initially and then with the Labour Party in Government, on which so much depended, has remained undisclosed.

I would like to know what Joaquin Almunia has to say on the score of Henley & Partners, their involvement from inception and the exclusive role handed them. Is there or is there not a situation of fair competition?

I understand that the social partners have now been called in to be used in destroying any potential claim of unfair competition; that Joseph Muscat expected to be attacked from the Financial Services angle that would have been more aligned with such reasoning.

This is my view:

Citizenship was discussed as a matter of national value, it gained phenomenal EU support as a national value with European impact in its second wider application, but when it came down to the negotiation, it was not brought to the table as a matter of national value in its own right as Citizenship, but as a Financial Services product.

The error of the Commission, if I may be so bold and since the full terms and implications of the negotiation have not yet been laid out and disclosed despite several requests from the Opposition, was to then accept to negotiate a Financial Services product under Citizenship terms and not Financial Services terms.

This was a new concept, and in the blur of its newness, I believe the EU has confused the fine but defining line between the two.

The two are not one.

Citizenship as it was hitherto known was not considered a Financial Services product until now.

What has happened is that old terminology has been applied to new territory.

The Financial Services Sector is more regulated.

The positioning and role of Henley & Partners is one that produces unfair competition within the local, EU and international market, and an impact on the wider EU and international territory (not market).

There is both a competition aspect, and a security aspect.

This Financial Services product is also selling benefits, such as access to other territories, that it has no right to sell. 560 votes against 22 told us this reasoning is correct.

The Government had first issued a statement a while back to “clarify” that this was not a “product.” The intention here, again, was to mislead.

It has now done the opposite and declared it a “product.”

When the Developers’ Association and the Estate Agency Groupings whipped up the emotions, and noise, both pre-election and post, it was to state that a Financial Services product responsible for creating investment was lacking. The words pushed through at all times – diverting attention from what was to follow and paving the way – were investment and employment. The same people attacking the scheme pre-election were at the London IIP launch.

Joseph Muscat has taken advantage of blurred boundaries, and confused the issue by attempting to redefine the boundaries himself in this fashion.

(He first embarrassed not only Malta, but the EU with a national issue he was asked several times by the Opposition to back down from and obviously he didn’t. Using that embarrassment caused to press for what he believes is a quick close to the issue.)

The two issues, although there is a delicate but firm line separating them, are not one.

The EU has both decided that selling a passport is wrong as a national and European value (560 votes vs 22), and – a few days later – that this new Financial Services product, so central to the Labour Government’s financing, can be sold.

Well I, as a Maltese citizen, feel cheated that there was no mention of either the intended change to the definition of “citizenship,” nor of the intended sale of this citizenship as a Financial Services product in the Labour election campaign and that Labour are governing on the back of this deceit.

I also feel cheated that the EU Commission has to-date failed to address the issue with the depth of reflection required and demanded by the European Parliament.

Relying on “good faith” is not the point. Nor is it enough. Too much damage, irreversable or not, risks taking place meanwhile. Human rights should dictate that one does not rely on “good faith” but on clear and reflected guidelines that take into account the wishes of the Member States through their EPs.

I would like to press on further and ask the current European Commissioner for Competition, whether he is satisfied with this state of affairs and with the dual band of consequences that seem set to be unleashed from Malta with apparent, EU Commission (not Parliament) blessing.

I, am not.

No.

Not in my name.

I urge the Nationalist Party to obtain an answer to these several questions from Joaquin Almunia for me and others who may think in this same vein.

This as a conclusion was altogether too rushed and hurried. If Commission has decided that Citizenship is a national competence, then any decision to change the very definition, nature and dignity of it should have required a mandate stipulated in the Labour election “manifest.” The fact that there was none, gives no legitimacy to any request to change the nature of it. This point could not have been taken into consideration.

Meanwhile, what we are confronted with, once again, is another opaque “outcome” for the Labour Party in Government. Why was it not clear about the agreement reached?

As though to gain support from the social partners and submission from the Opposition, through the use of coercive strategy, before the terms are clarified.

Another PR exercise to assist it towards its, and Henleys, objectives.

We are living in Kalingrad.

Daphne says that when one allows oneself to be bought, one must accept the consequence, namely that one can also be sold further down the road – or something like that, insomma.

And I think Daphne is right.

We now have a ‘Kim Joey un’ here. Don’t ‘misunderestimate’ him. (Appologies to Bush) Not as much hair as his North Korean and Chinese buddies, but just as sinister.

I’m so glad you reflected my exact thoughts. I cannot understand how NOBODY mentioned a word about all this ‘interference’ by Henley & Partners.

For Chris Kalin to form part of the government delegation in their meeting with the European Commission and then blatantly lay into the Opposition in Times of Malta seems scandalous. Yet yours is the first comment condemning this conduct that I have come across.

Is this what we have come to?