PN does not exclude referendum on citizenship law

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said his party would keep up its opposition to the Individual Investor Programme, after the House passed the IIP rules that will sell Maltese citizenship for €650,000.

Busuttil said the approval of the law was "a black day for democracy", saying his party had "stood firm till the very end and the government refused to seek consensus, preferring to steamroll on the opposition."

Busuttil spoke shortly after Joseph Muscat replied to his budget speech, saying the PN would be challenging the forthcoming legal notice in parliament.

Asked whether he would consider supporting an abrogation referendum, as Alternattiva Demokratika has suggested, Busuttil said he would not exclude anything. "Events are still developing and we do not exclude anything, including an abrogative referendum."

Busuttil reiterated that he would repeal IIP passports if elected to government, and that will be publishing the names of IIP citizens using his presence in the monitoring committee that, together with the Prime Minister, will oversee the running of Identity Malta and the IIP. "As things stand, revealing the names is not illegal," Busuttil said. "It's the government's action that is devaluating citizenship."

Busuttil played down the effect of Muscat's budget speech yesterday, saying the prime minister was "a good salesman but not a good statesman. It's what you come to expect of a Super One journalist, and his speech lacked substance.... This budget does not have a serious plan for job creation and Muscat failed to answer my criticism on unemployment and the unethical actions of the police commissioner."