Businessnow has published a very bizarre article and interview with the government consultant and board director Stephanie Fabri, where she naively admitted that Maltese-flagged vessels are involved in the Russian oil trade. She also went even further and made up a whole theoretical case against lower Russian oil caps for the sake of Malta’s flag registry, dressing her case with terms such as “geopolitics” and “critical juncture”.
Businessnow like many other media in Malta is government-funded and regularly runs propaganda items for the government dressed up as interesting features. Stephanie Fabri who is potentially also a Labour Party candidate in the next general election is an occasional contributor.
Malta made an objection to a lower Russian oil cap two EU Council meetings ago, in which the Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg said that Malta preferred to apply the cap if the US also agreed to it so that Malta doesn’t effectively lose some ships from the maritime register to countries like Liberia. Malta has given no intention that it will vetoing the final proposal and its objections were neither conditional. The negotiations are also ongoing and there is no clear result yet.
On the other hand, it was mainly the US that originally opposed the proposal. EU member states do not stand in the way of this proposal, but US reluctance is also incentivising them to air their concerns. EU Vice-Commissioner and High Representative Kaja Kallas has signaled that she is ready to go ahead with the cap even if the US does not back it. It is highly unlikely that Malta will be objecting to the final decision if it is eventually taken because the issue is not critical to Malta and neither serious.
Stephanie Fabri thinks she is doing the government a big favour by giving these very bizarre interviews to the press: all in line with Labour’s mantra of defending our national interest against the evil and genocidal Brussels that wants to tell us what to do. The reality is that her article is actually an invitation for risk analysts to scrutinise and investigate Malta’s maritime sector and its flag registry.
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Historian and Publisher
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