PM refuses to reveal the names of passport buyers

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has refused to give Parliament information about the people who have bought their Maltese passport under the government’s controversial citizenship scheme. Dr Muscat last week rejected a request by PN MP Karol Aquilina to identify the people on a Government Gazette list of hundreds of people who were given Maltese citizenship in 2015. The list, published in August 2016, does not draw any distinction between those who paid €1 million to gain EU access and those granted citizenship through naturalisation. Dr Muscat told Parliament that the law regulating the scheme did not allow for such distinctions to be made. Doing so could result in discrimination and violate the principle of equality for all citizens, Dr Muscat said. The scheme as originally envisioned by concessionaries Henley & Partners, in 2013, would not even have allowed for the publication of these names in the Government Gazette. In a separate question asking for the age and sex of passport buyers, Dr Muscat said such information would not be given, to protect people’s data and privacy. Fierce resistance by the Opposition and European Commission eventually led to the government backing...