EU Parliament politicians partly to blame for Brexit, says Maltese minister

The Maltese minister for foreign affairs has said the last batch of politicians elected to the European Parliament did not listen to voters, which in part brought on the 2016 Brexit vote.

He said that despite promises that politicians would take on board the concerns of voters that were voiced during the 2014 European elections, “I think that we did not do enough, and maybe Brexit can be seen as a consequence of not doing enough to listen to the people”.

Speaking in Dublin yesterday to The Irish Times, Carmelo Abela said that there was also a risk of reactionary nationalists and populists being elected to Brussels in record numbers this May. "Now we are approaching new elections to the European Parliament and I have a feeling that the results might not be as we wish," he said.

Concerns

“The risk is there. We need to understand better what people are feeling, the concerns of people, even working people who are risking to be in poverty or are not coping with daily needs,” he said.

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Mr Abela, who is a member of Malta’s ruling Labour party, visited the Border as part of an official trip to Ireland this week. “It makes you realise that when you talk about Brexit, it’s not just a political thing,” he said. “We knew that, but actually being there and meeting the people and hearing their concerns, which are serious concerns – you can see it on their faces.”

He said that the current situation in Westminster, where factions of both Labour and the Conservative parties are engaged in pitched battle against their own leadership, was inherently unstable. “You don’t have a government and an opposition and you know where they stand. Votes are interchangeable,” he said.

“There is uncertainty and it creates a bit of a chaotic situation that one cannot really tell how a vote will go.”

Tiny Malta is the smallest EU member state, with a population of just 400,000, but has found itself on the front line of a range of issues core to the politics of the bloc, from tax reform to migration.

‘Single malt’

On corporate tax, Malta is often considered in a similar light to Ireland – as a small economy which competes aggressively for investment based on a low corporate tax rate, but to the detriment of taxpayers elsewhere. In 2018, The Irish Times reported on a tax-reducing structure called a "single malt", which was used by US multinationals to lower their tax bills and involved Irish-registered, but Malta-resident companies.

Mr Abela said that much like Ireland, Malta was opposed to any move towards qualified majority voting on tax matters at EU level. “If this happens, and if large member states would like to push this forward and make it happen, then the small member states will lose their relevance. We don’t think this should happen in a union of member states,” he said.

“This is the competence of a member state, and we feel it should stay that way.”