‘Stop treating expats like cash cows’

European expats yesterday presented a petition to the Prime Minister demanding they must be treated equally to the Maltese and that they stop being treated like cash cows. “As an EU national I am tired of being seen as a cash cow. My euro is earned exactly the same way as a Maltese euro. There is no difference,” said Scottish-born Patricia Graham as she stood outside Auberge de Castille in Valletta, wearing a badge bearing the image of a cow. Ms Graham, who has been living in Malta for five years with her family, held a copy of a petition signed by 1,120 people calling for an end to “ongoing discrimination” against them. The petition says the Government remained silent despite the fact that EU nationals living in Malta were being discriminated against by being charged between 35 and 60 per cent more than their Maltese neighbours for several basic services. These services included car registration, home loans, television and internet services and e-residence cards but the hottest issues remained energy bills and bus fares. Electricity pricing regulations divide household electricity use into two separate bands: a ‘residential’ tariff for the primary home of Maltese citizens and a...