Robert Abela blocked anti-Putin sanctions

After months of delays and deadlock, the EU finally adopted further sanctions against Putin’s Russia over atrocities in Ukraine.  Delaying those sanctions, intended to force Putin to stop his relentless brutal attacks on his smaller Southern neighbour, were two Roberts –  Malta Prime Minister Robert Abela and Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico.

Abela was aligning with Fico, a pro-Putin populist who was forced to resign after the murder of Jan Kuciak, a journalist investigating high-level corruption. Fico was charged with leading “a criminal organisation” which controlled the police, but the case was later dropped. 

Fico travelled to Moscow to join Putin for the 80^th anniversary celebrations of the Russian victory over Nazi Germany, bang in the midst of Putin’s war raging in Eastern Europe. At the Kremlin, Fico pledged to block further sanctions against Putin and negotiated with Putin for more supplies of Russian gas to Slovakia. 

Fico harshly criticised his EU colleagues while claiming Putin was “wrongly demonised” by the West. On Christmas Eve, Fico was being feted at the Kremlin while his European colleagues were attending a security summit discussing the horrific conditions which Ukraine was being subjected to by Putin’s military.

Fico’s Smer party defended his visit to Moscow, stating that Fico was “merely trying to secure cheap gas imports for Slovakia”.  The majority of Europeans were appalled.  In Bratislava itself, one Slovakian politician denounced Fico for making their country “a tool of the Russian leader’s propaganda” and commenting that his trip was “a disgrace for Slovakia and a betrayal of national interests”.

Our own Robert was meanwhile protecting Putin from sanctions, too. Abela blocked new EU sanctions for the same reason Fico went to Moscow. Robert Abela was worried that the proposed sanctions could disproportionately affect Malta’s shipping sector.

Despite all his rhetoric of being in favour of peace and against war, Abela blocked efforts to end the war because he was concerned that Malta’s revenue might be affected.

Abela knows that even a small reduction in Malta’s economic growth would spell disaster.  He’s not worried for the country – he’s worried for himself. Abela can only keep borrowing to keep spending on buying votes as long as interest rates remain low.  If the country’s economy suffers even a minor blow, a slowing of the economy by a few percentage points, the costs of servicing the massive debt he’s accumulated will explode.

Abela needs the economy to grow to keep funding his hold on power.  The minute the economy hits the brakes, his already fragile position will be seriously threatened. 

We’ve been here before. As early as February 2022, while the US, the EU, Britain, Australia and Japan were imposing sanctions on Putin for launching a new invasion of Ukraine,  Abela was determined to keep selling passports to wealthy Russians.  Abela’s government mouthed its “strong support for Ukraine’s sovereignty” while enabling Putin’s oligarchs to thwart sanctions using their Maltese passport. 

While pressure mounted on Malta to stop selling passports to Russians, Abela kept insisting that “a strong percentage of applicants are refused citizenship and that proves how robust the programme is”.

He held out “the donations to Puttinu Cares and the many social projects through NDSF funds” to justify his refusal to stop passport sales to Russians. He even urged the press “not to harm a scheme that is working diligently” and that the country “should unite in preserving what is beneficial”. Beneficial for Putin surely, but also beneficial for Abela – he knew that 56 % of all applications for Maltese passports came from Russia or former Soviet Union countries. 

The Passport Papers revealed that over the course of the whole ‘Golden Passport’ scheme, the largest proportion of applicants for Maltese citizenship was Russian. 

Abela’s money-grabbing stance did not go down well with European colleagues.  Other European countries contributing hundreds of millions of euro in support of Ukraine, taking thousands of Ukrainian refugees, and passing on military equipment for Ukrainians to defend themselves felt cheated by Abela’s stinginess. It took weeks of intense pressure before Abela finally relented.

Malta finally stopped selling its citizenship to Russians.  Abela was forced to admit that “the necessary checks on prospective buyers could not be done”. The European Commission had warned that those golden passports “posed money-laundering and crime risks” as well as significant EU-wide “security threats”.

As with the golden passport sales to Russians, Abela has now finally backed off on his obstruction to new EU sanctions against Russia.  Because of him and his friend Fico, the 18^th EU package of sanctions took far longer than was necessary. 

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, was clearly relieved.  She said, “We’re cutting the Kremlin’s war budget further, going after 105 more shadow fleet ships, their enablers and limiting Russian banks’ access to funding… We will keep raising the costs, so stopping the aggression becomes the only path forward for Moscow”. 

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen added, “We are striking at the heart of Russia’s war machine… The pressure is on. It will stay on until Putin ends this war”.

If it were up to Abela, those sanctions would never have been enacted.  No matter how horrific the carnage Putin inflicts in Ukraine, Abela is only really interested in avoiding even the slightest dent in his economy.  It’s vital for him to be able to borrow more money to buy the votes he needs to stay in power. 

If you have any doubt about how Abela thinks, remember that he rented out his derelict Zejtun property to potential Russian passport buyers to help them cheat the system. 

Abela knew those Russians weren’t residing in Zejtun. Yet he deceitfully provided them with the documentation they required to get their hands on a Maltese passport.