After Moneyval, Bartolo accuses PN of using MEPs to ‘pick on small Malta’

Foreign minister Evarist Bartolo has railed against a resolution approved by over 600 MEPs, including Labour’s socialist colleagues, on Malta’s state of rule of law after the island avoided a much-feared greylisting from the Council of Europe’s Moneyval.

Bartolo posted a missive against the promoters of a European Parliament resolution on rule of law in Malta, which was approved by a landslide of over 600 MEPs.

“There are people who are pleased at the senseless resolution against Malta that was pushed by the PN in the European Parliament, rather than at Malta passing its Moneyval test, which safeguards thousands of Matese jobs,” he said on Facebook.

“This resolution was pushed by the PN against Malta as if we had done nothing to safeguard rule of law,” he said, referring to a spate of anti-money laundering operations that took place over the past two years, which were necessary for Malta to avoid Moneyval grey-listing.

But Bartolo was critical of the resolution, which he mocked with a quote from Macbeth, as being “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The Labour veteran said the EP had been instrumentalised by the partisan detractors who refused to acknowledge Malta’s success in addressing shortcomings identified by the Moneyval report on money laundering rules. He also accused the two Nationalist MEPs David Casa and Roberta Metsola of piloting the resolution.

“The speeches were senseless and without any decency in recognising the steps we had taken to strengthen our law courts and police in the safeguard of rule of law.

“The EP was pushed by the PN MEPs to turn judge, jury and executioner on Malta. They pick on us, a small nation, because they would never turn on the larger states even when they are guilty of far greater shortcomings, especially those with governments led by the PN’s political family, the EPP.”

Bartolo accused the PN of using the European Parliament for its parochial and partisan ends. “When the EP lets itself be used in such parochial and partisan games, it loses credibility. The PN tried to trip us up in a bid to fail the Moneyval test, but it’s all egg on their face. They used the EP for their lies and cant, the ‘sound and fury signifying nothing’.”