A community bond put up for sale

If citizenship had to be retailed under the onerous price tag of €1 million, or more, how different a prostitution would this be for the Maltese government? For, as one respected columnist pointed out, a high-class prostitute is no less an immoral act than a back-street job...

Yesterday, Joseph Muscat successfully passed a controversial bill to create the Individual Investor Programme. Armed with his nine-seat majority, he gave the Opposition no room in which to demand concessions on their amendments, steamrolling the bill through the democratic process in time for the Budget debate. Muscat knows there is over €30 million riding on this law, and he needs the money for an important cash injection to finance the consolidated fund.

Undoubtedly, the IIP is another controversial policy that Muscat's new Labour has failed to sell to the Maltese public, going by MaltaToday's survey last Sunday. There is an irony, ideologically, for the party whose national-patriotic brand of socialism was once etched in the maxim of 'Malta, first and foremast', now tying the country's economic fortunes to the sale of enhanced mobility to the global rich. To Muscat, this is the mark of an economy moving out of 'prehistory', even though that characterisation is an unsuitable label for the island's economic success.

As he will learn, the sale of citizenship to the very rich, whose only interest is having access to the eurozone and visa-free travel to the United States, amongst other countries, is an unfair proposition that rankles with an inherent bond of community we share. Citizenship may not be 'identity', as opponents like the Nationalist Party seem to make it out to be. A person like Simon Busuttil, whose snootiness informed the misguided characterisation of 'Nationalist and Labour faces' during the last election, is the last person who can speak out for 'a Maltese identity'.

The real Maltese citizenry is aware of the community bond we share with other, non-Maltese members of society. Like native Maltese, so many migrants work hard and pay taxes, start businesses, send their children to schools, who in turn learn the Maltese language and become fully integrated members of our society.

So why do our naturalisation rules still maintain an unfair structure in which these migrants have to wait years, and with no guarantee, to become part of our society as Maltese citizens?

It is this unfair playing field that leaves both the government and Opposition with no leg to stand on. For the real test of Maltese identity and pride is the ability to welcome new members to our society, by offering them a concrete framework in which they can become Maltese citizens: a proven domicile, duration of residency, proven economic ties, a basic knowledge of history, culture and language through an appropriate citizenship ship; and also a proper naturalisation ceremony.

Instead, the sale of Maltese citizenship will proceed with the utmost dearth of transparency for Maltese citizens, who will be unable to know who are the global rich using Maltese passports for their own personal mobility.

There are of course, a few political repercussions to this. There are no guarantees that applicants with politically motivated charges fleeing their own countries will not be granted IIP citizenship - even though the law approved yesterday removed a controversial clause to this effect, nothing prevents Identity Malta from recommending citizenship for any applicant to the minister. After all, Identity Malta is led by a politically-appointed individual.

It will be up to the government-appointed regulator and ultimately, a high-level monitoring committee composed of the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader, to oversee the running of the IIP. Even then, it seems only an act of civil disobedience by the Opposition leader will lead to the publication of the names of IIP citizens. Surely, not the most serene way of ensuring transparency.

Muscat also proved to be steadfast on his intention to have the IIP law passed, with no concession granted to the Opposition on such red lines as the publication of the names of the IIP citizens. This was also in part the Opposition's failing: its lack of a moral stand - vacillating between opposing the IIP on a 'point of principle', to demanding a higher investment for a Maltese passport - made it easy for Muscat not to give the Nationalists any credence.

Politically, this will be one controversy Muscat will ride out. Once the money rolls in, screwing the bolts of his Budget tightly in, Muscat will have justified the IIP. But there will always be the moral bankruptcy of using citizenship to make millions. And if citizenship is for sale, then what next?