Under pressure from the opposition following allegations of his wife's involvement in the Panama Papers scandal, the Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, announced on Monday 1 May that a snap general election would be held on 3 June.
“I am serene. And that serenity comes from the fact that we know that we've worked night and day for the good of this country. We are ready to serve better (…). We are serene because we know that others can only come against us with lies”, Muscat said, quoted by the daily newspaper Malta Today.
Last week, blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia accused Muscat's wife of being the beneficial owner of Egrant Inc., one of three Panamanian companies acquired by the Maltese law firm Nexia BT through the services of Mossack Fonseca. The two other Panamanian companies, Hearnville Inc. and Tillgate Inc., belonged to the Maltese Minister, Konrad Mizzi, and the Prime Minister's Head of Cabinet, Keith Schembri. The blogger claims that Michelle Muscat received $1 million from the daughter of the President of Azerbaijan through Egrant Inc.
Last week, the leader of the EPP group at the European Parliament, the German MEP Manfred Weber, said that he intended to ask the conference of the presidents to invite Muscat to explain himself before a plenary session of the European Parliament.
On Twitter on Monday, Weber said that it was “time for a new leadership of Malta. It's time for a strong and reliable government. It's time for Simon Busuttil” (the leader of the Nationalist Party, which is affiliated to the EPP). The EPP's spokesperson, Siegfried Mureşan, tweeted that the rumours of corruption surrounding Prime Minister Muscat showed Malta “in a bad light”. Lastly, Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola (EPP) described Muscat's election announcement as a “desperate move to save his career at Malta's expense”. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)