This is a letter sent today by Vicki Ann Cremona, president of Repubblika to the President of the European Council Charles Michel.

11 December 2019

HE M Charles MICHEL
President of the European Council
Brussels

Dear Sir

Re: Presence of Mr Joseph Muscat at the European Council

Repubblika is a civil society organisation that is leading the ongoing campaign in Malta demanding justice for journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, assassinated by car bomb in October 2017, and also demanding the immediate resignation of Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat.

Evidence heard in court or reported in the media but not denied shows that the prime minister’s personal staff engaged directly with persons charged with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and persons who have confessed to their role in the assassination. These include most prominently the prime minister’s former chief of staff who engaged directly with the suspected members of the conspiracy to murder the journalist before and after the murder and before and after their arrest.

It is reasonable to suspect that Joseph Muscat’s office has participated in the conspiracy to cover-up the murder and by extension therefore it is perfectly justified to expect the authorities to investigate the possibility that Joseph Muscat and or his staff participated in the conspiracy to murder Daphne Caruana Galizia.

No doubt, only a judicial process can establish these facts. However, under universal standards of governance and more specifically in the Maltese context where all investigative agencies report directly to the prime minister, Joseph Muscat’s position as prime minister is untenable and intolerable.

To add insult to injury, given the identity of the person charged as the mastermind of this crime it seems clear that the motive of the assassination was the cover-up of an international bribery and corruption scandal involving kickbacks paid to the same chief of staff in relation to a new power station project that was used by Joseph Muscat as the key electoral platform that propelled him to power in 2013.

As head of government of a Member State, Joseph Muscat is an integral part of the Union’s governance. As a visiting cross-party delegation of MEPs stated recently, Europe’s governance is based on trust which Joseph Muscat has betrayed to an irreparable extent.

We submit that it is unhealthy for the European Council to treat as an equal a prime minister who refuses to leave office when a murder investigation has reached his personal office including the chief of staff he refused to dismiss for three and a half years after Daphne Caruana Galizia discovered he set up secret off-shore companies the week Joseph Muscat first came to office as prime minister.

Much as it grieves us to argue for the suspension of Malta’s participation in the European Council it is the firmly held view of Maltese civil society that Joseph Muscat’s participation in the Council risks laundering Joseph Muscat’s reputation at the cost of the democratic viability of the European Union itself.

As Maltese and as Europeans we therefore ask you to consider informing Joseph Muscat that he would not be welcome at the upcoming European Council and that you look forward to working with his replacement.

We firmly uphold the values of the European Union listed in Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union. Now we expect the European Union to uphold these values with us.

Yours sincerely,

Vicki Ann Cremona
President, Repubblika