Owen Bonnici repeats false claims on PBS status to shield Eurovision spending

Culture Minister Owen Bonnici is once again, deliberately, misrepresenting the legal status of the public broadcaster in a continued effort to conceal how millions in taxpayers’ funds are being spent under his political responsibility.

Over recent weeks, Bonnici has repeatedly refused to answer parliamentary questions concerning PBS Ltd, the state-owned company responsible for TVM, including direct questions on how much public money was spent on Malta’s Eurovision Song Contest.

In replies to questions tabled by PN spokesperson Julie Zahra, the minister insisted that PBS is a “commercial entity” and therefore not obliged to disclose such information.

That claim is demonstrably false.

The issue of PBS’s legal status has long been settled by Malta’s courts, which have ruled on more than one occasion that PBS is a public entity, funded by taxpayers and bound by transparency and accountability obligations. In its most recent ruling, issued in December 2025, the Court of Appeal, presided by Judge Lawrence Mintoff, reaffirmed that both the minister and PBS were wrong to argue otherwise, confirming that the broadcaster falls squarely within public law.

Despite this, Bonnici has persisted in repeating the same argument, effectively ignoring binding court judgments to justify withholding information from Parliament and the public.

This tactic mirrors the approach taken by PBS itself.

In several Freedom of Information requests submitted over the years, the broadcaster – through its lawyer and company secretary Mark Vassallo – has consistently argued that it is exempt from disclosure obligations because it operates as a commercial entity.

Those arguments, too, have been rejected by the courts.

PBS’s reliance on such claims is particularly striking given that the broadcaster is overwhelmingly financed through public funds.

As previously revealed by The Shift, PBS signed a new public service contract with the government last summer, guaranteeing it €9 million a year until 2029. The agreement, negotiated and signed under Bonnici’s watch, was kept secret until exposed by The Shift.

The minister’s refusal to disclose Eurovision-related expenditure comes against this backdrop of sustained efforts to obscure how PBS spends public money. Eurovision participation, which involves substantial costs related to production, promotion, travel, and logistics, has historically attracted public scrutiny. Yet Bonnici is refusing to provide even basic figures.

The lack of transparency extends beyond Eurovision.

Bonnici and PBS have also refused to disclose details on how public funds are being used to finance current affairs and other programmes on TVM.

The Shift has previously reported that several such programmes are presented by individuals with well-known political and business ties to the Labour administration, raising serious concerns about conflicts of interest and political capture of the national broadcaster.