Makes you proud

Glorious Dictator Ilham Aliyev wonders whether he should buy his wife and daughter Maltese passports.

In response to a question by Opposition MP Claudio Grech, Manuel Mallia’s successor as Citizenship Minister – Carmelo Abela – said in parliament that 573 people have applied to become citizens of Malta.

These, you must understand, are just the main applicants. The figure does not include their spouses, children, parents, in-laws, grandparents and what have you.

Grech also asked for the figure to be broken down by current nationality. Abela refused, categorising the applicants by region and percentage instead, as under:

65% from the former Soviet Union
19% from the Middle East
13% from Asian states
7% from Africa
3% from North America
1% from EU/EFTA (I thought those who are already EU citizens are not permitted to apply)
just under 1% from South America

I’m a little tired right now, and might be missing something, but I’ve just totted those figures up in my head and got 109%. But maybe that 65% should read 56% – that lops off the extra 9% neatly.

Oh well. We’ll soon have a Jordanian university of Saudi Arabia to teach us arithmetic.

Claudio Grech asked Carmelo Abela why so many people from the former Soviet Union are after a Maltese passport (they’re not, of course; they’re after a Schengen passport) but all he could say in response was some old gas about how they want to invest in Malta and develop closer ties with the island.

That would be before they buzz off to Paris and London with their brand-new and oh so credible Maltese citizenship, never to return.