Malta not for sale?

As was perhaps predictable, the announcement of a scheme whereby Maltese citizenship can be acquired against payment of €650,000 elicited some negative reactions... forcing the Prime Minister onto the defensive over a scheme that (as Dr Muscat reminded his critics) is already in place in a number of other countries.

The prime minister also pointed towards the revenues it will raise, arguing that according to conservative estimates, it will inject €30 million into a posterity fund that will be used to bolster Malta's social services in future.

A number of considerations spring to mind. At face value, the government's decision to forge ahead with a scheme that can be realistically described as a case of 'cash for citizenship' - and above all, its candid admission that such schemes can be justified purely on the basis of the revenue they raise - can only create the impression that such revenues are required with urgency. This apparently belies the same government's claims (made recently on Fox News and elsewhere) to be a role model for the global economy.

Nonetheless, there is nothing endemically wrong with a proposal aimed directly at engendering a cash injection into the economy. Nor are such initiatives the sole prerogative of the Labour government. The previous administration also toyed with similar stratagems to raise funds for specific projects: one example concerns the 'special purpose vehicle' that was intended to raise money to pay for the City Gate project by renting out government properties.

Moreover, Muscat's government can always point towards various factors beyond its direct control as justifications for an initiative that has clearly caught the public wrong-footed, among them, the national debt that was created by previous governments.

The present administration is also bound by an electoral commitment to lower the cost of electricity without raising taxes - a balancing act that most economists would argue is impossible without resorting to precisely such unorthodox ploys.

All the same, the general reaction - which was mostly of consternation and disbelief - is understandable for purely emotional reasons. It is an interesting coincidence that this initiative should be made public so soon after a MaltaToday survey revealed that the issue of national identity is in fact a major concern among the wider population. Placed in the context of an ongoing debate on immigration (which, rightly or wrongly, is often portrayed as a 'threat' to our culture and identity), this concern has often taken the form of an aggressive form of patriotism or nationalism which automatically attaches immense significance to all the idiosyncrasies that make us Maltese in the first place.

All external symbols of such identity have of late been called into question: for instance, a random proposal to remove the George Cross from the flag triggered a debate on what is perhaps the ultimate symbol of Maltese nationality - the Maltese flag - and it was clear from the arguments presented that such issues are steeped in emotion and nationalistic fervour.

Such questions lie at the very heart of what constitutes 'Malteseness', and it is on this same quality that the 'right' to apply for citizenship hinges. This may well account for some of the negative reactions: it would seem that a quality which many Maltese interpret (not without good reason) to be somehow 'unique' can now be bought over the counter for a particular sum. And while, stripped of all its emotional connotations, the concept in itself may not even be that unusual, it is understandable that it would give rise to indignation and dismay.

Coming as it does from the Labour Party, which in the past set such store on issues of national identity in its efforts to forge a post-colonial identity - with slogans such as 'Malta first and foremost' still reverberating in our collective memory - this sudden mercantile approach to matters concerning national identity is almost certain to have irked and irritated even some of the PL's core.

However, this must also be viewed in the context of the near-total silence on the part of an opposition party which is currently firing on all cylinders over all sorts of other issues... including some which have clearly not captured the popular imagination to an even remotely comparable extent. All in all, one would have expected the Nationalist Party to voice the concerns of the sceptics who interpret this as yet another case of 'selling the family silver'. Yet apart from Jason Azzopardi's oblique comment that "we [the Opposition] were not consulted", it must be said that the party has conspicuously stopped short of condemning the scheme in any shape or form.

One can only infer that, unlike so many of their own supporters, neither government nor the opposition is particularly averse to the idea of putting Maltese citizenship up for sale, even though the same proposal clearly jars with both parties' repeated argument that Malta is 'too full to cope' with more immigrant arrivals. This in turn provides yet another graphic illustration of the widening gulf that separates Malta's political establishment from the electorate it is supposed to represent.

Faced with such a conspicuous case of political detachment, one can only wonder who - if anyone - can still claim to represent the national interest.