Tonio Fenech - ‘I did not badmouth Malta...I defended it’

Former Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has denied badmouthing Malta in a recent meeting with the International Monetary Fund, insisting that he had a clear conscience and had actually defended the country. He was contacted after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in Brussels claimed that a member of the previous administration – whom he refused to name – had incited IMF representatives during a recent meeting he had with them. “We know there was someone, who, for instance, was inciting the IMF because he is not in government anymore and told the IMF that there are problems, which only three months ago he was saying did not exist. The IMF itself told us this. When they told us who had told them this we were surprised,” he told journalists on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels. Asked to name the individual, Dr Muscat said: “I think you can ask around.” Dr Muscat was speaking in the context of the Excessive Deficit Procedure that the European Commission is expected to take against Malta for its failure to keep within the deficit threshold of the eurozone. In spite of the procedures, Dr Muscat said the Government had managed to convince the Europ-ean Commission against the need for...