We are going through an international crisis and a war in Europe, while we have to contend with a government, made up of a rabble of infantile idiots, opportunists and literal criminals. These people don’t understand and have no comprehension at all of the world around them, what’s happening today and moreover how to behave and how to act. The consequences of handing a lot of power to these infants are unmistakably severe.
Our Prime Minister will never understand the grievous consequences of allowing Russian oligarchs to buy Maltese passports and use Malta as one of their financial outposts. Apart from the money-laundering aspect, we now have geopolitical risks for having allowed powerful Russian oligarchs to use Malta for activities we are completely oblivious of. Our Prime Minister thinks that under these circumstances when Russia is invading Ukraine, selling passports to Russian oligarchs is fine. It’s good business.
The government needs to calibrate its policy according to what is happening in the world but this is not going to happen with a government of infants who are barely able to comprehend it. Putin’s war with Ukraine has revoked not only the Minsk agreements, but also revokes the historic understanding between Europe and Russia forged after the Cold War that peace is a prerequisite for trade. Putin has made it clear that he does not respect this historical understanding, and this was the reason originally why Germany enthusiastically bought gas from Russia. By being significant trade partners with Russia, Germany has sought to keep the peace in Eastern Europe and also become Russia’s preferred trading partner in Western Europe – this foreign policy logic is now defunct. As long as Putin remains in power, there will be a slow and steady economic disengagement by Europe from Russia – as a result, this can be a time when Africa starts to shine. Europe can easily and successfully replace Russian imports with imports from Africa.
However, we should not only stop selling passport sales to Russians exclusively, but we should scrap the scheme altogether. Russia has many proxies and rogue states can use foreign nationals as proxies for their financial operations. By now the world has changed to the extent that we have to admit that the passport sale scheme is not in our interest and poses too many risks for us.
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