Month: September 2026

Malta and Cyprus applied to join the European Community in 1990. When in 1993 the European Commission issued positive opinions for the start of their pre-accesion process, Cypriots, dreading the difficulties Turkey’s occupation would pose for their bid, would envy the Maltese for the easy ride they could expect on their path to full membership.

Both countries went through a grueling but cathartic process of raising their standards on a comprehensive range of technical fronts but none was more important than the political prerequisites the European Union had set. Its ‘Copenhagen Criteria’ demanded of candidate countries stable institutions that would guarantee democratic governance, a reliable and independent legal system and respect for fundamental human freedoms.

The European Commission was strict and uncompromising. Malta and Cyprus finally joined in 2004 by which time the Union itself had grown into a robust work-in-progress. It stood, at that point, both as an achievement and as an ongoing aspiration, and served as the global standard. It was where every liberal, progressive European nation aspired to belong, where citizens saw their rights protected by institutions they could trust.

Their economies expanded, their civil societies were strengthened, their media were liberated from the shackles of insularity to be protected by that abstract blanket of ‘Europeanness’ supported by a supranational institutional framework based on the European Charter for Fundamental Rights.

Then, the Union itself faltered. The excesses of neo-liberalism and the financial crises they brought hit an astounding mediocrity of leadership to produce a perfect storm. By the time it recovered, Russia pounced on Crimea and Britain and the US began to implode giving rise to vulgar populism and corruption that eroded national and European political institutions, weakening the Union’s standing and authority.

Europe’s conception of the rule of law came under attack, oversight couldn’t keep up while citizens became distracted, mesmerised and then manipulated by their new found social toys. The media lost their footing often becoming themselves pawns of the new corporate culture.

Like the rest of the member states, Malta and Cyprus trotted along, as did, of course, worse cases like Hungary and Poland, but graft and corruption had already contaminated politics everywhere. Public Private Partnerships was the new mantra and the media, who were supposed to keep an eye, couldn’t keep up. Often they became part of the game, with only few -and much fewer individual journalists- remaining faithful to the hard work in the public interest.

In October 2017, in Malta, the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was brutally assassinated for her journalistic probing into corruption allegations and kickbacks linked to political and business figures over a large Maltese energy project deal. A public inquiry concluded that while the Maltese state had no direct involvement it bore responsibility for the murder. It had created a climate of impunity which stemmed from its highest ranks and had failed to take preventive measures to protect her life.

After years of dithering, a trial conducted under dubious conditions last month, acquitted the well connected Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech of charges of masterminding Daphne’s murder. Malta has since come under severe international criticism. Twenty-two years after having seemingly fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria, a dark culture of corruption continued to have a grip on the country. One that leaves journalists seeking the truth entirely unprotected and allows resulting criminal acts like Daphne’s murder go unpunished.

The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen recently insisted that the pursuit of justice for Daphne must not end, stating that there can be no impunity from her murder. No one can dispute von der Leyen’s sincerity*, or her role in the Daphne-inspired European Media Freedom Act to help promote media pluralism and the safety of journalists across the EU. Similarly, no one can underestimate the value of the European Parliament’s annual Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism which awards and encourages outstanding journalism. But these gestures are not enough to wash away the fact that Malta’s embarrassing predicament is also a stain on the Union itself. Malta and Cyprus –where the state has recently worked uncharacteristically swiftly in dragging a journalist to court in its effort intimidate the media– are a reflection of the European Union.

The Commission may issue elaborate and overall useful annual Rule of Law reports on all its member states but these are toothless documents which, crucially, rely too heavily on state authority feedback for their assessment and miss the mark on how bad things are on the ground. Both Malta’s and Cyprus’ reports are cases in point.

As the people of Malta pour into the streets in protest, and as pressure grows on the country, it is no longer enough for European leaders to sloganise human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and media freedom. Daphne died working to defend these values; the Union has an obligation to do more than just keep ‘promoting’ them.

These days most of us cringe when we hear European leaders issue evasive declarations of concern about human rights or the safety of journalists given that we see a feckless Union lacking the moral courage to act, for example, on Israel and the genocide in Gaza. It is, to paraphrase James Baldwin, what you do, not what you say.

It is a depressing truth but the Union appears to have normalised its impotence. Even as its credibility crumbles under the weight of its fixation to protect internal balances and external interests rather than boldly act on the values it claims to uphold, it continues to operate gingerly like there is no alternative. Daphne took it upon herself to uncover the truth in Malta. She did not pull back from her responsibility as an investigative journalist. In contrast, and to their shame, European decision makers and institutions hide comfortably behind a perpetual state of collective irresponsibility.

* Ursula von der Leyen visited the site of Daphne’s assassination in 2021. Photo above: Times of Malta.

In the 80th minute of Liverpool’s Premier League match against Nottingham Forest last Saturday with the score stuck at 1-2, my brother anxiously wrote on our “You’ll Never Walk Alone” group-chat: “Fuck Bezos, we need a goal”.

The dark and troubling news that Liverpool’s 11 players chasing the equalizer had recently transitioned into the employment of a consortium which included the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos suddenly became entirely irrelevant. Football, at that moment, was, as it should be, solely about what was happening on the pitch. Ten minutes before the final whistle Liverpool needed an equalizer.

Our group chat feed had strained bitterly groaning about the American oligarch’s participation in the consortium that purchased a 38 per cent stake in LFC for around 2 billion euros with, reportedly, first option for any further sale of shares. It was, for me at least, a severe blow for my relationship with the club. Not as distasteful a capitulation as when the state-owned Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund purchased a majority stake of Newcastle United in 2021, but, for Liverpool’s standards, close enough. Bezos may not need to sports-wash like the Saudis do but his style of vulgar capitalism leaves an indelible stain on LFC.

The man who shamelessly sucks up to Donald Trump, the man who destroyed the credibility of the once revered Washington Post, a newspaper that Katherine Graham and Ben Bradley had painstakingly nurtured through the turbulent Nixon years, the man who invented the online bookshop only to begin pulverising books used for MI scraping, now had a say over how our boyhood club would be governed.

His money and potential boardroom presence would contaminate the essence of what Liverpool Football Club was about: Scouse socialism, community, family, solidarity, fair play, plain old northern decency and, not least, a strong anti-authoritarianism. Despite the absence of the latter, apart from some modest protestations, Liverpool had succumbed. Other clubs could bend prospective buyers’ due diligence like Beckham, if they wanted to but, for Liverpool to fall prey to this type of elite capture, was unfathomable and, in the end, unforgivable.

To the uninitiated, those who may have not come to football through childhood, being attached to a club, savoring the perfectly weighted pass, jumping to the beautifully worked goal, sulking in defeat, waiting for the perfect write-up in the sports pages can, not surprisingly, seem irrational.

But what is increasingly and depressingly irrational to us, those on the inside, is how the perfectly weighted pass and the beautifully worked goal have become a mere side show to the obsessive corporatism that has taken over the game; the global oligarchy’s pouncing for financial diversification by buying into clubs, the outrageously overpaid executives and players, the shady transactionalism, that whole Infantino culture.

Anfield can still offer glimpses of the authenticity of old, even if these are often carefully curated as props for those TikToking their way up into their executive boxes. Eighty minutes before the Bezos expletive, Anfield paid tribute to one of the icons of that standard, its one-time No 7, Kevin Keegan, who had passed away in the summer. My generation grew up with Keegan’s effortless goal scoring, his genuine joy and soft modesty. In the arbitrary manner in which children end up supporting a football club, he opened the way to my Liverpool experience. All because, quite randomly, my father had attended a match at Anfield in 1976 and had secured an autographed black and white photo of him that still stands framed in my office.

I would be devastated when a year later, in 1977, Keegan decided to leave Liverpool for Hamburg SV in a transfer worth 400,000 pounds. Aghast at the mere concept of transfers and certainly ignorant of the tax-regime that had apparently forced Keegan to emigrate, it was an early introduction to the monetary dimension of the sport. With that 400,000 pounds, and 40,000 more, Liverpool would secure the services of a new No.7, a Scot by the name of Kenny Dalglish, whose football ethic and dedication would define a new era and forever exemplify the spirit of the club.

This past Saturday, 5o years after my father’s first Anfield visit, his grand-daughter stood at the Kop under the KEVIN 7 mosaic tribute and later cheered as the goal Liverpool desperately chased arrived in the 82nd minute.

It resulted in what Bill Shankly would often define as his purpose as manager “to bring happiness and pride to the community’. As true and as plain as his fundamental tactical instruction to “pass and move.”

There are likely to have been many young parents at Anfield on Saturday with sons and daughters who will have been mesmerised by the spirit in the stands and the thrill of the football on the pitch. Bezos’ encroachment has hurt the pride of many Liverpool fans but it cannot interfere with the genuine joy of seeing the ball hit the back of the net. Because, at its purest moments, football is never about financial returns; it is always about a return to childhood.