While the European Union and its commissioners deal with the media in Slovenia and Hungary, none of the high-ranking EU representatives ask the socialist government in Malta how the investigation of the murdered journalist Daphne Caurana Galizia is progressing.
This hypocrisy of the Brussels bureaucracy and the European Commission was pointed out by the Polish MEPs during the last debate. MEPs Ryszard Czarnecki (PiS) and Andrzej Halicki (PO) criticised the Maltese Socialists during a debate in the European Parliament for not investigating the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, Polish portal w Polityce reported.
“We need to re-establish the rule of law in Malta,” Halicki said, as many things about the murder remained unexplained. It was a political murder in which the connection between politics and criminals was not investigated, and five years have already passed since the journalist’s death.
Czarnecki questioned whether the EU paid enough attention to the murder and why the EU paid more attention to Poland than to the crime in Malta.
“Five years have passed since the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, five long years without justice. Where are those who ordered the murder? Where are those who paid for it? The socialist government still refuses to be transparent. In Malta, there is pressure on journalists, there is lack of media freedom, and as the vice president of the LIBE committee responsible for monitoring the rule of law, I have to say very clearly and loudly: there is no rule of law without media freedom, there is no democracy without media freedom, because there are also no free and fair elections,” Halicki said, adding: “We must restore the rule of law in Malta, Daphne Caruana Galizia is waiting for justice, but also for democracy.”
MEP Patryk Jaki (PiS) warned that the journalist had discovered corruption in the political elite itself. “Despite the years that have passed, the politicians or those who ordered the murder of the journalist have not yet been convicted,” he said. Moreover, the family of the murdered journalist is still a target of socialist politicians or the judiciary in Malta. Jaki expressed outrage at the impunity of key people in the administration of the former Prime Minister of Malta, including the former Prime Minister himself, his cabinet chiefs, ministers, and other people in the administration.
The Polish MEPs drew attention to the double standards used by the European Commission.
J.B.
