ATHENS — Greece’s parliament is expected to pass double-edged legislation on Wednesday that will help recruit tens of thousands more South Asian workers, while simultaneously penalizing migrants that the government says have entered the country illegally. Greece’s right-wing administration seeks to style itself as tough on migration but needs to pass Wednesday’s bill thanks to a crippling labor shortfall in vital sectors such as tourism, construction and agriculture. The central idea of the new legislation is to simplify bringing in workers through recruitment schemes agreed with countries such as India, Bangladesh and Egypt. There will be a special “fast track” for big public-works projects. The New Democracy government knows, however, that these measures to recruit more foreign workers will play badly with some core supporters. For that reason the bill includes strong measures against immigrants who have already entered Greece illegally, and also pledges to clamp down on the non-government organizations helping migrants. “We need workers, but we are tough on illegal immigration,” Greece’s Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told ERT television. The migration tensions in Greece reflect the extent to which it remains a hot button issue across Europe, even though numbers have dropped significantly since the massive flows of 2015, when the Greek Aegean islands were one of the main points of arrival. More than 80,000 positions for immigrants have been approved by the Greek state annually over the past two years. There are no official figures on labor shortages, but studies from industry associations indicate the country’s needs are more than double the state-approved number of spots, and that only half of those positions are filled. The migration bill is expected to pass because the government holds a majority in parliament. Opposition parties have condemned it, saying it ignores the need to integrate the migrants already in Greece and adopts the rhetoric of the far right. Under the new legislation, migrants who entered the country illegally will have no opportunity to acquire legal status. The bill also abolishes a provision granting residence permits to unaccompanied minors once they turn 18, provided they attend school in Greece. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal, and when they are located they will be arrested, imprisoned for two to five years and repatriated,” Plevris told lawmakers. Human-rights groups also oppose the legislation, which they say criminalizes humanitarian NGOs by explicitly linking their migration-related activities to serious crimes.  The bill envisages severe penalties such as mandatory prison terms of at least 10 years and heavy fines for assisting irregular entry, providing transport for illegal migration, or helping those migrants stay. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal,” Thanos Plevris told lawmakers. | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA Wednesday’s legislation also grants the migration minister broad powers to deregister NGOs based solely on criminal charges against one member, and will allow residence permits to be revoked on the basis of suspicion alone — undermining the presumption of innocence. Greece’s national ombudsman has expressed serious concerns about the bill, arguing that punishing people for entering the country illegally contravenes international conventions on the treatment of refugees. Lefteris Papagiannakis, director of the Greek Council for Refugees, was equally damning. “This binary political approach follows the global hostile and racist policy around migration,” he said.

BEIJING — Britain on Thursday opened the door to an inward visit by Xi Jinping after the Chinese president hailed a thawing of relations between the two nations. Downing Street repeatedly declined to rule out the prospect of welcoming Xi in future after saying that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s current visit to China would not be a “one-and-done summit.” Asked about the prospect of an inward visit — which would be the first for 11 years — Starmer’s official spokesperson told reporters: “I think the prime minister has been clear that a reset relationship with China, that it’s no longer in an ice age, is beneficial to British people and British business. “I’m not going to get ahead of future engagements. We’ll set those out in the normal way.” Xi paid a full state visit to the U.K. in 2015 and visited a traditional pub with then-Prime Minister David Cameron, during what is now seen as a “golden era” of British-Chinese relations. Critics of China’s stance on human rights and espionage see the trip as one of the worst foreign policy misjudgments of the Cameron era. Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said: “We should not roll out the red carpet for a state that conducts daily espionage in our country, flouts international trading rules and aids Putin in his senseless war on Ukraine. We need a dialogue with China, we do not need to kowtow to them.” Any state visit invitation would be in the name of King Charles III and be issued by Buckingham Palace. There is no suggestion that a full state visit is being considered at present. Xi did not leave mainland China for more than two years during the Covid-19 pandemic. Starmer and Xi met Thursday in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and the two nations agreed to look at the “feasibility” of a partnership in the services sector. Britain said it had signed an agreement for China to waive visa rules for British citizens visiting for less than 30 days for business or tourism, bringing the U.K. into line with nations including France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan. The two nations also promised to co-operate on conformity assessments, exports, sports, tackling organized crime, vocational training and food safety, though further details were not immediately available. Starmer also hailed “really good progress” on lowering Chinese whisky tariffs. One official familiar with the talks stressed that Starmer had also raised more difficult issues including the ongoing detention of British-Hong Kong democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, and China’s position on the war in Ukraine — but declined to be drawn on the specifics of the pair’s conversation. The talks steered clear of more difficult topics such as wind farm technology, where critics fear co-operation would leave Britain vulnerable to Chinese influence. Asked if Starmer had come back empty handed, his spokesperson said: “I don’t accept that at all. I think this is a historic trip where you’ve seen for the first time in eight years a PM set foot on Chinese soil, have a meeting at the highest level with the president of the second largest economy in the world. “You should also note that this isn’t a question of a one-and-done summit with China. It is a resetting of a relationship that has been on ice for eight years.”

The U.K. and China have announced a new services partnership to support British businesses operating in China, including through visa-free travel for short stays. The partnership will see Beijing relax its visa rules for British citizens, adding the U.K. to its visa-free list of countries. This will enable visits of up to 30 days for business and tourism without the need for a visa. The timings of the visa change have not yet been set out. The partnership focuses on better collaboration for businesses in healthcare, financial and professional services, legal services, education and skills — areas where British firms often face regulatory or administrative hurdles.  Britain and China have also agreed to conduct a “feasibility study” to explore whether to enter negotiations towards a bilateral services agreement. If it proceeds, this would establish clear and legally binding rules for U.K. firms doing business in China. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “As one of the world’s economic powerhouses, businesses have been crying out for ways to grow their footprints in China. “We’ll make it easier for them to do so – including via relaxed visa rules for short-term travel — supporting them to expand abroad, all while boosting growth and jobs at home.” The U.K. and China have also signed pacts covering co-operation on conformity assessments for exports from the U.K. to China, food safety, animal, and plant quarantine health and the work the UK-China Joint Economic and Trade Commission. The two sides aren’t planning to publish the full texts of the pacts.

BEIJING — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has hailed “really good progress” on Chinese whisky tariffs and visa-free travel after a lengthy meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Starmer dubbed the one hour and 20 minute sit-down with Xi as “a very good productive session with real, concrete outcomes, [which was] a real strengthening of the relationship.” Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said: “We made some really good progress on tariffs for whisky, on visa free travel to China and on information exchange.” The news will be welcomed by Scotch whisky exporters, who have been squeezed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariffs on imported U.K. goods.  Currently, Scotch whisky exports face 10 percent duties in China, after the country doubled its import tariffs on brandy and whisky in February 2025, removing its provisional 5 percent rate. Exports to China fell by 31 percent last year, sliding from China’s fifth-largest export market to its tenth.  “We’ve agreed that on tariffs for whisky, we’re looking at how they’re to be reduced, what the timeframe is,” said Starmer. The two sides also made progress on visa-free travel to China for short stays — which would allow British citizens to visit for tourism, business conferences, family visits, and short exchange activities without requiring a visa. Britain is currently not among the European countries granted visa-free access to China, a list that includes France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. Starmer said the two sides are now looking at “how far, how much, and when that can start.” China issued its own readout via state news agency Xinhua, where it discussed expanded cooperation in “education, healthcare, finance, and services, and conduct joint research and industrial transformation in fields such as artificial intelligence, bioscience, new energy, and low-carbon technologies to achieve common development and prosperity.” The Chinese statement said both sides should “strengthen people-to-people exchanges and further facilitate personnel exchanges,” adding that China “is willing to actively consider implementing unilateral visa-free entry for the U.K.” Starmer and Chinese Premier Li Qiang are due to sign memorandums of understanding covering cooperation in a number of areas at a signing ceremony on Thursday morning U.K. time. Starmer and Li will also sign a border security pact to enlist Beijing’s help in choking off the supply of small boat engines and equipment used by criminal gangs to facilitate Channel crossings POLITICO first reported earlier this month that the U.K. was pushing to secure visa-free travel and lower whisky tariffs. This developing story is being updated.

LONDON — Keir Starmer is off to China to try to lock in some economic wins he can shout about back home. But some of the trickiest trade issues are already being placed firmly in the “too difficult” box. The U.K.’s trade ministry quietly dispatched several delegations to Beijing over the fall to hash out deals with the Chinese commerce ministry and lay the groundwork for the British prime minister’s visit, which gets going in earnest Wednesday. But the visit comes as Britain faces growing pressure from its Western allies to combat Chinese industrial overproduction — and just weeks after Starmer handed his trade chief new powers to move faster in imposing tariffs on cheap, subsidized imports from countries like China. For now, then, the aim is to secure progress in areas that are seen as less sensitive. Starmer’s delegation of CEOs and chairs will split their time between Beijing and Shanghai, with executives representing City giants and high-profile British brands including HSBC, Standard Chartered, Schroders, and the London Stock Exchange Group, alongside AstraZeneca, Jaguar Land Rover, Octopus Energy, and Brompton filling out the cast list. Starmer will be flanked on his visit by Trade Secretary Peter Kyle and City Minister Lucy Rigby. Despite the weighty delegation, ministers insist the approach is deliberately narrow. “We have a very clear-eyed approach when it comes to China,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis said Monday. “Where it is in our national interest to cooperate and work closely with [China], then we will do so. But when it’s our national security interest to safeguard against the threats that [they] pose, we will absolutely do that.” Starmer’s wishlist will be carefully calibrated not to rock the boat. Drumming up Chinese cash for heavy energy infrastructure, including sensitive wind turbine technology, is off the table. Instead, the U.K. has been pushing for lower whisky tariffs, improved market access for services firms, recognition of professional qualifications, banking and insurance licences for British companies operating in China, easier cross-border investment, and visa-free travel for short stays. With China fiercely protective of its domestic market, some of those asks will be easier said than done. Here’s POLITICO’s pro guide to where it could get bumpy. CHAMPIONING THE CITY OF LONDON Britain’s share of China’s services market was a modest 2.7 percent in 2024 — and U.K. firms are itching for more work in the country. British officials have been pushing for recognition of professional qualifications for accountants, designers and architects — which would allow professionals to practice in China without re-licensing locally — and visa-free travel for short stays. Vocational accreditation is a “long-standing issue” in the bilateral relationship, with “little movement” so far on persuading Beijing to recognize U.K. professional credentials as equivalent to its own, according to a senior industry representative familiar with the talks, who, like others in this report, was granted anonymity to speak freely. But while the U.K.’s allies in the European Union and the U.S. have imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs, the U.K. has resisted pressure to do so. | Jessica Lee/EPA Britain is one of the few developed countries still missing from China’s visa-free list, which now includes France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Sweden.  Starmer is hoping to mirror a deal struck by Canadian PM Mark Carney, whose own China visit unlocked visa-free travel for Canadians.  The hope is that easier business travel will reduce friction and make it easier for people to travel and explore opportunities on the ground — it would allow visa-free travel for British citizens, giving them the ability to travel for tourism, attend business conferences, visit friends and family, and participate in short exchange activities.  SMOOTHING FINANCIAL FLOWS The Financial Conduct Authority’s Chair Ashley Alder is also flying out to Beijing, hoping to secure closer alignment between the two countries’ capital markets. He’ll represent Britain’s financial watchdog at the inaugural U.K-China Financial Working Group in Beijing — and bang the drum for better market connectivity between the U.K. and China. Expect emphasis on the cross-border investments mechanism known as the Shanghai-London and Shenzhen-London Stock Connect, plus data sovereignty issues associated with Chinese companies jointly listing on the London Stock Exchange, two figures familiar with the planning said. The Stock Connect opened up both markets to investors in 2019 which, according to FCA Chair Ashley Alder, led to listings worth almost $6 billion. “Technical obstacles have so far prevented us from realizing Stock Connect’s full potential,” Alder said in a speech last year. Alder pointed to a memorandum of understanding being drawn up between the FCA and China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration, which he said is “critical” to allow information to be shared quickly and for firms to be supervised across borders. But that raises its own concerns about Chinese use of data. “The goods wins are easier,” said a senior British business representative briefed on the talks. “Some of the service ones are more difficult.” TAPPING INTO CHINA’S BIOTECH BOOM Pharma executives, including AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot, are among those heading to China, as Britain tries to burnish its credentials as a global life sciences hub — and attract foreign direct investment. China, once known mainly for generics — cheaper versions of branded medicine that deliver the same treatment — has rapidly emerged as a pharma powerhouse. According to ING Bank’s global healthcare lead, Stephen Farrelly, the country has “effectively replaced Europe” as a center of innovation. ING data shows China’s share of global innovative drug approvals jumped from just 4 percent in 2014 to 27 percent in 2024. Pharma executives, including AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot, are among those heading to China, as Britain tries to burnish its credentials as a global life sciences hub — and attract foreign direct investment. | John G. Mabanglo/EPA Several blockbuster drug patents are set to expire in the coming years, opening the door for cheaper generic competitors. To refill thinning pipelines, drugmakers are increasingly turning to biotech companies. British pharma giant GSK signed a licensing deal with Chinese biotech firm Hengrui Pharma last July. “Because of the increasing relevance of China, the big pharma industry and the U.K. by definition is now looking to China as a source of those new innovative therapies,” Farrelly said. There are already signs of progress. Science Minister Patrick Vallance said late last year that the U.K. and China are ready to work together in “uncontroversial” areas, including health, after talks with his Chinese counterpart. AstraZeneca, the University of Cambridge and Beijing municipal parties have already signed a partnership to share expertise. And earlier this year, the U.K. announced plans to become a “global first choice for clinical trials.” “The U.K. can really help China with the trust gap” when it comes to getting drugs onto the market, said Quin Wills, CEO of Ochre, a biotech company operating in New York, Oxford and Taiwan. “The U.K. could become a global gold stamp for China. We could be like a regulatory bridgehead where [healthcare regulator] MHRA, now separate from the EU since Brexit, can do its own thing and can maybe offer a 150-day streamlined clinical approval process for China as part of a broader agreement.” SLASHING WHISKY TARIFFS  The U.K. has also been pushing for lowered tariffs on whisky alongside wider agri-food market access, according to two of the industry figures familiar with the planning cited earlier. Talks at the end of 2024 between then-Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and his Chinese counterpart ended Covid-era restrictions on exports, reopening pork market access. But in February 2025 China doubled its import tariffs on brandy and whisky, removing its provisional 5 percent tariff and applying the 10 percent most-favored-nation rate. “The whisky and brandy issue became China leverage,” said the senior British business representative briefed on the talks. “I think that they’re probably going to get rid of the tariff.”  It’s not yet clear how China would lower whisky tariffs without breaching World Trade Organization rules, which say it would have to lower its tariffs to all other countries too. INDUSTRIAL TENSIONS The trip comes as the U.K. faces growing international pressure to take a tougher line on Chinese industrial overproduction, particularly of steel and electric cars. But in February 2025 China doubled its import tariffs on brandy and whisky, removing its provisional 5 percent tariff and applying the 10 percent most-favored-nation rate. | Yonhap/EPA But while the U.K.’s allies in the European Union and the U.S. have imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs, the U.K. has resisted pressure to do so. There’s a deal “in the works” between Chinese EV maker and Jaguar Land Rover, said the senior British business representative briefed on the talks quoted higher, where the two are “looking for a big investment announcement. But nothing has been agreed.” The deal would see the Chinese EV maker use JLR’s factory in the U.K. to build cars in Britain, the FT reported last week. “Chinese companies are increasingly focused on localising their operations,” said another business representative familiar with the talks, noting Chinese EV makers are “realising that just flaunting their products overseas won’t be a sustainable long term model.” It’s unlikely Starmer will land a deal on heavy energy infrastructure, including wind turbine technology, that could leave Britain vulnerable to China. The U.K. has still not decided whether to let Ming Yang, a Chinese firm, invest £1.5 billion in a wind farm off the coast of Scotland.

Andrea Carlo is a British-Italian researcher and journalist living in Rome. His work has been published in various outlets, including TIME, Euronews and the Independent. Last month, UNESCO designated Italian cuisine part of the world’s “intangible cultural heritage.” This wasn’t the first time such an honor was bestowed upon food in some form — French haute cuisine and Korean kimchi fermentation, among others, have been similarly recognized. But it was the first time a nation’s cuisine in its entirety made the list. So, as the U.N. agency acknowledged the country’s “biocultural diversity” and its “blend of culinary traditions […] associated with the use of raw materials and artisanal food preparation techniques,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reacted with expected pride. This is “a victory for Italy,” she said. And prestige aside — Italy already tops UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites — it isn’t hard to see the potential benefits this designation might entail. One study even suggests the UNESCO nod alone could boost Italian tourism by up to 8 percent. But behind this evident soft power win also lies a political agenda, which has turned “Italian cuisine” into a powerful weapon for the country’s right-wing government. For Meloni’s government, food is all the rage. It permeates every aspect of political life. From promoting “Made in Italy” products to blocking EU nutrition labelling scores and banning lab-grown meat, Rome has been doing its utmost to regulate what’s on Italian plates. In fact, during Gaza protests in Rome in September, Meloni was sat in front of the Colosseum for a “Sunday lunch” as part of her government’s long-running campaign to make the coveted list. Clearly, the prime minister has made Italian cuisine one of the main courses of her political menu. And all of this can be pinpointed to a phenomenon political scientists call “gastronationalism,” whereby food and its production are used to fuel identitarian narratives — a trend the Italian far right has latched onto with particular gusto. There are two main principles involving Italian gastronationalism: The notion that the country’s culinary traditions must be protected from “foreign contamination,” and that its recipes must be enshrined to prevent any “tinkering.” And the effects of this gastronationalism now stretch from political realm all the way to the world of social media “rage-bait,” with a deluge of TikTok and Instagram content lambasting “culinary sins” like adding cream to carbonara or putting pineapple on pizza. At the crux of this gastronationalism, though, lies the willful disregard of two fundamental truths: First, foreign influence has contributed mightily to what Italian cuisine is today; and second, what is considered to be “Italian cuisine” is neither as old nor as set in stone as gastronationalists would like to admit. Europe, as a continent, is historically poor in its selection of indigenous produce — and Italy is no exception. The remarkable variety of the country’s cuisine isn’t due to some geographic anomaly, rather, it is the byproduct of centuries of foreign influence combined with a largely favorable climate: Citrus fruits imported by Arab settlers in the Middle Ages, basil from the Indian subcontinent through ancient Greek trading routes, pasta-making traditions from East Asia, and tomatoes from the Americas. Lying at the crossroads of the Mediterranean and home to major trading outposts, Italy was a sponge for cultural cross-pollination, which enriched its culinary heritage. To speak of the “purity” of Italian food is inherently ahistorical. This wasn’t the first time such an honor was bestowed upon food in some form — French haute cuisine and Korean kimchi fermentation, among others, have been similarly recognized. | Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images But even more controversial is acknowledging that the concept of “Italian cuisine” is a relatively recent construct — one largely borne from post-World War II efforts to both unite a culturally and politically fragmented country, and to market its international appeal. From north to south, not only is Italy’s cuisine remarkably diverse, but most of its iconic dishes today would have been alien to those living hardly a century ago. Back then, Italy was an agrarian society that largely fed itself with legume-rich foods. Take my great-grandmother from Lake Como — raised on a diet of polenta and lake fish — who had never heard of pizza prior to the 1960s. “The mythology [of gastronationalism] has made complex recipes — recipes which would have bewildered our grandmothers — into an exercise of national pride-building,” said Laura Leuzzi, an Italian historian at Glasgow’s Robert Gordon University. Food historian Alberto Grandi took that argument a step forward, titling his latest book — released to much furor — “Italian cuisine does not exist.” From carbonara to tiramisù, many beloved Italian classics are relatively recent creations, not much older than the culinary “blasphemies” from across the pond, like chicken parmesan or Hawaiian pizza. Even more surprising is the extent of U.S. influence on contemporary Italian food itself. Pizza, for instance, only earned its red stripes when American pizza-makers began adding tomato sauce to the dough, in turn influencing pizzaioli back in Italy. And yet, some Italian politicians, like Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, have called for investigations into brands promoting supposedly misleadingly “Italian sounding” products, such as carbonara sauces using “inauthentic” ingredients like pancetta. Lollobrigida would do well to revisit the original written recipe of carbonara, published in a 1954 cookbook, which actually called for the use of pancetta and Gruyère cheese — quite unlike its current pecorino, guanciale and egg yolk-based sauce. Simply put, Italian cuisine wasn’t just exported by the diaspora — it is also the product of the diaspora. One study even suggests the UNESCO nod alone could boost Italian tourism by up to 8 percent. | Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto via Getty Images What makes it so rich and beloved is that it has continued to evolve through time and place, becoming a source of intergenerational cohesion, as noted by UNESCO. Static “sacredness” is fundamentally antithetical to a cuisine that’s constantly reinventing itself, both at home and abroad. The profound ignorance underpinning Italian gastronationalism could be considered almost comedic if it weren’t so perfidious — a seemingly innocuous tool in a broader arsenal of weaponry, deployed to score cheap political points. Most crucially, it appeals directly to emotion in a country where food has been unwittingly dragged into a culture war. “They’re coming for nonna’s lasagna” content regularly makes the rounds on Facebook, inflaming millions against minorities, foreigners, vegans, the left and more. And the real kicker? Every nonna makes her lasagna differently. Hopefully, UNESCO’s recognition can serve as a moment of reflection in a country where food has increasingly been turned into a source of division. Italian cuisine certainly merits recognition and faces genuine threats — the impact of organized crime and the effects of climate change on crop growth biggest among them. But it shouldn’t become an unwitting participant in an ideological agenda that runs counter to its very spirit. For now, perhaps it’s best if our government kept politics off the dinner table.

Pedro Sánchez is the prime minister of Spain. It’s no secret the world is going through a time of turbulence. The principles that held it together for decades are under threat; disinformation is spreading freely; and even the foundations of the welfare state — which brought us the longest period of prosperity in human history — are now being questioned by a far-right transnational movement challenging our democratic systems’ ability to deliver collective solutions and social justice. In the face of this attack, Europe stands as a wall of resistance. The EU has been  — and must remain — a shelter for the values that uphold our democracies, our cohesion and our freedom. But let’s be honest, values don’t put a roof over your head. And at any rate, these values are fading fast in the face of something as concrete and urgent as the lack of affordable housing. If we do not act, Europe risks becoming a shelter without homes. The figures are clear: The housing crisis is devastating the standard of living across Europe. Between 2010 and 2025, home prices rose by 60 percent, while rental prices went up by nearly 30 percent. In countries like Estonia or Hungary, prices have tripled. In densely populated or high-tourism cities, families can spend over 70 percent of their income on rent. And individuals with stable jobs in Madrid, Lisbon or Budapest can no longer afford to live where they work or where they grew up. Meanwhile, 93 million Europeans — that’s one in five — are living at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This isn’t just the perception of experts or institutions: Around half of Europeans consider housing to be an “urgent and immediate problem.” Housing, which should be a right, has become a trap that shapes peoples’ present, suffocates their future and endangers Europe’s cohesion, economic dynamism and prosperity. The roots of this problem may differ from country to country, but two facts are undeniable and shared throughout our continent: First, the need for more houses, which we’ve been falling behind on for years. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. After a period of strong growth in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis triggered a collapse in housing investment, and the sector never fully recovered. The pandemic only widened this gap, halting permits, delaying materials and worsening labor shortages that further stalled construction. Second, and just as urgent, is that we must ensure both new construction and existing housing stock serve their true purpose: upholding the fundamental right to decent and affordable housing. Because as we continue to fall short of guaranteeing this basic right, homes are increasingly being diverted to fuel speculation or serve secondary uses like tourist rentals. In fact, according to preliminary European Parliament data, there were around 4 million short-term rental listings on digital platforms across the EU in 2025. In my home country, cities like Madrid and València have witnessed the displacement of residents from their historic centers, which are transforming into theme parks for tourists. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. | David Zorrakino/Getty Images At the same time, housing is increasingly being treated as a financial asset instead of a social good. In Ireland, investment funds have acquired nearly half of all newly built homes since 2017, while in Sweden, institutional investors now control 24 percent of all private rental apartments. Just as no one would dare justify doubling the price of a bowl of rice for a starving child, we cannot accept turning the roofs meant to shelter people into a vehicle for speculation — and citizens overwhelmingly share in this view. Seventy-one percent of Europeans believe that the places they live would benefit from more controls on property speculation, like taxing vacant rentals or regulating short-term rentals. This is what the EU stands for: When it’s a choice between profit and people, we choose people. That choice can’t wait any longer. Thankfully, with yesterday’s Affordable Housing Plan, the European Commission is starting to move on housing, taking steps that Spain has long advocated. Brussels now increasingly recognizes the scale of this emergency and acknowledges that specific market conditions may require differentiated national and local responses. This will help consolidate a shared policy understanding regarding housing-stressed areas and strengthen the case for targeted measures — which may include, among others, restrictions on short-term rentals. Crucially, the plan also stresses the need for EU financing to boost housing supply. The time for words is over. We need urgent action. A growing outcry over housing is resonating across Europe, and our citizens need concrete solutions. Any failure to act with ambition and urgency risks turning the housing crisis into a new driver of Euroskepticism. After World War II, Europe was built on two founding promises: securing peace and delivering well-being. Honoring that legacy today means taking decisive action by massively increasing flexible funding to match the scale of the housing crisis, and guaranteeing member countries can swiftly implement the legal tools needed to adopt bold regulatory measures on short-term rentals and address the impact of nonresident buyers on housing access. The true measure of our union isn’t just written in treaties. It must be demonstrated by ensuring every person can live with dignity and have a place to call home. Let us rise to that promise — boldly, together and without delay.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a visa-free travel regime with China, following Beijing’s earlier move to temporarily suspend the visa requirement for Russians.  “It [the no-visa policy] will be a positive boost for the development of our relations,” Putin said Tuesday while hosting Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang in the Kremlin. Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists that the visa requirement for Chinese nationals would be dropped “very quickly.”  “The president has said so. All necessary preparations will soon be completed,” Peskov said.  Putin said the regime for Chinese citizens would be “reciprocal,” but didn’t share details. Russian nationals can currently remain in China for up to 30 days without a visa under a year-long trial policy announced by Beijing in September. Putin has been attempting to deepen relations with China since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, aiming to reduce the country’s reliance on the U.S. and Europe. Weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow and Beijing signed a “no-limits” partnership that declared the two powers have “no forbidden areas for cooperation.” Following the deal, Chinese exports to Russia spiked, with mutual trade now four times higher than it was a decade ago. Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the decision of Europe and Japan to halt air traffic with Russia, tourism between Russia and China has also grown, with China now among the top destinations for Russian travelers.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the EU have previously accused China of supporting the Russian war effort in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian leader saying Beijing has supplied weapons. 

LONDON — Donald Trump’s war against the media has gone international.  Britain’s public service broadcaster has until 10 p.m. U.K. time on Friday to retract a 2024 documentary that he claims did him “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” — or potentially face a $1 billion lawsuit (nearly £760 million). It’s the U.S. president’s first notable battle with a non-American media organization. The escalation from Trump comes as the BBC is already grappling with the double resignations this past weekend of two top executives, Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness, amid the growing furor sparked by the release last week of an internal ombudsman’s report criticizing the Trump program as well as the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war. Trump told Fox News he believes he has “an obligation” to sue the corporation because “they defrauded the public” and “butchered” a speech he gave. POLITICO walks you through the possible road ahead — and the potential pitfalls on both sides of the Atlantic.  WHY IS TRUMP THREATENING TO SUE?  The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election.  The program included footage from Trump’s speech ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, which was selectively edited to suggest, incorrectly, that he told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”   But those lines were spoken almost an hour apart, and the documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”  “I really struggle to understand how we got to this place,” former BBC legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman told POLITICO. “The first lesson almost you’re taught as a broadcast journalist is that you do not join two bits of footage together from different times in a way that will make the audience think that it is one piece of footage.” The U.S. president’s legal team claimed the edit on the footage was “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory” and caused him “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”  BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. Trump’s lawyers said in their letter that they want a retraction, an apology and appropriate financial compensation — though their client’s subsequent comments suggest that may not satisfy him at this point. DO TRUMP’S CLAIMS STAND A CHANCE?  Trump’s lawyers indicated in their letter that he plans to sue in Florida, his home state, which has a two-year statute of limitations for defamation rather than the U.K.’s one-year limit — which has already passed.  The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images To even gain a hearing, the U.S. president would first need to prove the documentary was available there. The broadcaster confirmed the Panorama episode was not shown on the global feed of the BBC News Channel, while programs on iPlayer, the BBC’s catchup service, were only available in the U.K.  The Trump team’s letter to the BBC, however, claimed the clip was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums” reaching tens of millions of people worldwide — a key contention that would need to be considered by any judge deciding whether the case could be brought.  U.S. libel laws are tougher for claimants given that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. In U.S. courts, public figures claiming to have been defamed also have to show the accuser acted with “actual malice.”  The legal meaning doesn’t require animosity or dislike, but instead an intent to spread false information or some action in reckless disregard of the truth — a high burden of proof for Trump’s lawyers.  American libel standards tend to favor publishers more than those in Britain, so much so that in recent decades public figures angry about U.S. news reports have often opted to file suit in the U.K. That trend even prompted a 2010 U.S. law aimed at reining in so-called libel tourism. Yet Trump’s legal team is signaling it will argue that since the full video of Trump’s 2021 speech was widely available to the BBC, the editing itself amounted to reckless disregard and, therefore, actual malice.  BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images “The BBC’s reckless disregard for the truth underscores the actual malice behind the decision to publish the wrongful content, given the plain falsity of the statements,” his lawyers wrote.  However, a court battle wouldn’t be without risks for Trump. Prateek Swaika, a U.K.-based partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, said pursuing litigation “could force detailed examination and disclosure in connection” with Trump’s Jan. 6 statements —  potentially creating “more reputational damage than the original edit.”  COULD THE BBC SETTLE?  Trump has a long history of threatening legal action, especially against the press, but has lately had success in reaching out-of-court agreements with media outlets — including, most notably, the U.S. broadcasters ABC and CBS.  Trump’s latest claim is the flipside of his $20 billion suit against CBS’s “60 Minutes” over an interview with then-Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deceptively edited to make Harris look good and therefore amounted to election interference.  CBS settled for $16 million in July, paying into a fund for Trump’s presidential library or charitable causes, though the network admitted no wrongdoing. The settlement came as CBS’ parent company, Paramount, was pursuing a corporate merger that the Trump administration had the power to block — and after Trump publicly said he thought CBS should lose its broadcast license, which is also granted by the federal government. The president doesn’t hold that same sway over the BBC, though the organization does have some U.S.-based commercial operations. Some news organizations have also opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Some news organizations have opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images “Litigation is always a commercial decision and it’s a reputational decision,” said Coleman, suggesting settlement talks may look appealing compared to fighting a case that could “hang over the heads of the BBC for many, many years, like a dark cloud.”  COULD THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT STEP IN?  Despite the BBC’s standing as a state broadcaster, the Labour government has so far taken a hands-off approach, perhaps unsurprisingly given Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ongoing efforts to woo Trump on trade. No. 10 said on Tuesday that the lawsuit threat was a matter for the BBC, though Starmer subsequently reiterated his support for it generally. “I believe in a strong and independent BBC,” Starmer said at prime minister’s questions Wednesday. “Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist … I’m not one of them.” Perhaps eager to stay in Trump’s good books, the PM’s ministers have also avoided attacking the president and instead walked a diplomatic tightrope by praising the BBC in more general terms. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Tuesday reiterated the government’s vision of the BBC as a tool of soft power. The BBC documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” | Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images “At a time when the line between fact and opinion, and between news and polemic, is being dangerously blurred, the BBC stands apart,” Nandy told MPs Tuesday. “It is a light on the hill for people here and across the world.”  WHO WOULD FUND ANY PAYOUT?  The BBC is funded by the country’s license fee, which requires any household that has a TV or uses BBC iPlayer to pay £174.50 a year (some people are exempt from paying). In the year ending March 2025, this accounted for £3.8 billion of the corporation’s overall £5.9 billion in income. The remaining £2 billion came from activities including commercial ventures. Any licence fee revenue that funded a settlement with Trump would likely go down very poorly as a political matter, given looming tax increases in the U.K. as well as the U.S. president’s significant unpopularity with British voters. The corporation lost a €100,000 (£88,000) libel case earlier this year against former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams after a Dublin jury found the broadcaster falsely connected him to a 2006 Irish Republican Army killing, showing there is a precedent for politicians winning cases.  Responding to a question as to whether license fee payers would fund any legal sum, Starmer said Wednesday: “Where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order and the BBC must uphold the highest standards, be accountable and correct errors quickly.” Singer Cliff Richard also received £210,000 in damages and around £2 million in legal costs from the BBC in 2019 over a privacy case, though those payments were within the scope of its legal insurance. MIGHT AN ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT WORK?  The BBC has paid damages to a foreign head of state before, including compensating then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2019 for an incorrect report. But Trump technically faces rules on accepting foreign payments. There’s every chance that a settlement to Trump could pass through another vehicle, as the with the CBS agreement. ABC’s settlement involved $15 million to a Trump-related foundation alongside $1 million for his legal fees.  Trump’s former attorney Alan Dershowitz suggested just that on Tuesday, saying if the corporation made a “substantial” contribution to a charity “that’s relevant to the president might put this thing behind them.” 

THE BOOM THAT BROKE MALTA A sprawling fraud trial involving former premier Joseph Muscat lays bare the costs of 12 years of gangbuster growth. By BEN MUNSTER in Paceville, Malta Illustrations by Naama Benziman for POLITICO If you’re looking for a prime example of the profound ugliness and moral decay inflicted on this tiny island nation by a decade of misrule, you could do worse than a visit to the coastal party district of Paceville. Sickly, meaty smells permeate the air, house music booms behind high walls, and throngs of tourists frequent strip clubs in ungainly new builds that, like malign vines, are beginning to encroach on the district’s neighboring suburbs. “It’s grab, grab, grab,” griped local Mayor Noel Muscat, who was up in arms last year about plans for a gargantuan luxury hotel near his own quiet constituency of Swieqi. The structure, he said, was both widely unpopular and conceptually incoherent: a tower so large it would cast a shadow over the very sliver of beach developers hope rich clients will pay a hefty sum to access. Advertisement But despite all that, most residents are likely to support it, he said — being merely happy that the value of their own adjacent properties will go up. Since the once-dominant ex-premier Joseph Muscat (no relation to Noel) took power in 2013, this tiny Mediterranean island nation has witnessed an astonishing economic boom, fueled by a no-holds-barred drive to court the world’s wealthy. But the giddy growth spurt has led to serious deformities — most visibly in the country’s increasingly stunted living environment. In towns like Paceville and countless others, weary locals complain that powerful construction firms have been allowed to run roughshod over politicians and planning laws, erecting foreboding skylines over the tiny island’s once-pristine coast, while critical infrastructure rots. Politics has degraded in tandem, producing endless corruption scandals and a persistent feeling of impunity as major trials continued to produce zero high-level convictions. A Eurobarometer survey last year in Malta reported that some 95 percent of respondents believed corruption to be “widespread.” That all appeared to change in May 2024, when Joseph Muscat and 33 others were charged in connection with a sprawling, international fraud that seemed to epitomize this disregard for Malta’s towns and cities. Top officials, including the former premier, were accused of stealing thousands of euros in taxpayer money intended for the overhaul of three crumbling state-run hospitals. They deny the charges. To activists, the scale of the so-called Vitals case made it the first real shot to hold accountable a government they say has spent the past 10 years plundering the public purse with impunity. But as proceedings wear on inconclusively after a full year and a half, there is growing anxiety about the prospects for the trial, which has run aground amid an array of baffling procedural blunders and a ferocious political counteroffensive. An opaque and vulnerable justice system has left prosecutors floundering with a hole-ridden charge sheet, and the government, for all its critics, continues to trounce the weak opposition — enjoying ironclad support from swaths of the population that have grown rich off its policies. As change looks increasingly improbable, it’s raised an uncomfortable question: When corruption becomes so lucrative that it entrenches itself at the heart of politics, can it ever be rooted out? ORIGINAL SIN  Squeezed between Sicily and North Africa, Malta’s half-a-million citizens occupy a mass of urban sprawl barely a fifth the size of London — less a country than a city-state marooned in the Mediterranean, indelibly shaped by millennia of foreign rule.  From 40,000 feet above sea level, that history rolls into view as a near-unbroken series of parchment-yellow settlements stretching from coast to coast across three tiny islands, punctuated by patches of dry scrub and deep red earth from which little grows. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see the eclectic architectural legacy of a panoply of imperial invaders — the Phoenicians, Romans, Normans, Arabs, Spanish Habsburgs, Napoleon, and the British Empire — and their baroque palaces, Umayyad forts, and colonial-era barracks. Since the departure of the British in 1964, the island’s inhabitants have been in search of a homegrown national identity beyond textiles and piracy. The 20th century saw a bitter conflict over language, political violence and a long flirtation with Libya-style nonalignment. The country finally hitched its fortunes to Europe in 2004 with its entry into the EU — but its true transformation began in 2013 with the election of Joseph Muscat on a sweeping platform of renewal after years of economic hardship. Advertisement Muscat was the dynamic young leader of the Labour Party, which along with the Nationalist Party is one of two century-old factions that command fanatical bases of support in Malta. Muscat’s strategy was to exploit the tiny nation’s newfound access to the world’s largest trading bloc, catering to an increasingly footloose global elite. Under his watch, the government radically changed its business model, selling passports to wealthy foreigners and making it trivially easy to set up financial services, crypto and internet gaming firms that could then operate across the EU.  Malta quickly became a playground for international investors. Between 2013 and 2024, the stock of foreign direct investment — much of it in shell companies, trusts and holding companies — surged from €9.6 billion to a staggering €460 billion, 68 times faster than Malta’s equally breakneck domestic growth. At the same time, gross domestic product per capita leaped by almost 70 percent, over four times the European average, creating a class of newly prosperous citizens who were hard-pressed to quibble with the new order.  But prosperity also brought an increasing coziness between business and politics. The perception of corruption crept up steadily. Desmond Zammit Marmarà, a former Labour lawmaker-turned-critic, said he was routinely solicited for bribes (he assured POLITICO he turned them down), and observed a tendency in the public sector to fraudulently inflate budgets. Another former Labour lawmaker lamented that centuries of colonial domination had taught his countrymen that it was a virtue to rob the state.  Unease over this new dynamic figured most prominently in the construction sector. Upon taking office, Labour supercharged an anything-goes approach to development kicked off by the previous government. The dream was to transform Malta into a cosmopolis for the super rich — a Mediterranean Dubai of luxury hotels and towering office blocks. Malta’s urban landscape soon witnessed an extraordinary transformation. Cranes filled the heavens, sawdust choked the thoroughfares, and neat rows of 19th-century townhouses gave way to graceless slabs of glass and steel. The endless construction brought in waves of migrant workers, tourists and businessmen, all flocking to the new country being built piecemeal over the old one, dramatically swelling the population in summertime and causing an enduring housing crisis.  Critics said the whole system was broken and corrupt. A planning process spread across a tangle of local bodies, public institutions and ministerial portfolios was easily exploited by developers looking to ram through at times legally dicey projects, often with the tacit support of government and municipal officials. According to Emanuel Delia, the co-founder of the rule-of-law nongovernmental organization Repubblika, the policy changes featured a mix of genuine deregulation — for instance around building limits for real estate — and “selective enforcement” of existing rules that favored firms with close ties to government. Just this summer, Malta’s National Audit Office triggered a fresh round of public outrage when it alleged that Muscat’s powerful chief of staff, Keith Schembri, had helped Malta’s land authority conceal an evaluation report on behalf of a large developer in 2019, costing the taxpayer nearly €16 million. Schembri has denied any wrongdoing. In Delia’s view, Malta has fallen victim to a kind of “amoral familism” in which wealthy and well-connected clans put enriching themselves and their relatives above all else. Some locals, while acknowledging the blight of overdevelopment, privately defended it on those terms, arguing that those who exploited the flawed rules were blameless — victims of financial incentives too attractive to resist. THE VITALS SCANDAL On the face of it, the plans in 2015 to privatize three crumbling hospitals took the same logic that characterized Muscat’s boom — quick growth through private deals — and applied it to Malta’s failing public services.  As outlined by top officials, the idea was to hand over Karin Grech, Gozo General and St. Luke’s hospitals to a homegrown health care consortium, Vitals Global Healthcare, which would renovate the hospitals along the lines of a “health tourism” model that it could export across Europe. But despite the €456 million infusion from the government, Vitals failed to deliver on many of its commitments, according to a scathing report by the National Audit Office in 2021. In 2017, after dozens of deadlines were missed, the concession was handed over to a local subsidiary of the U.S.-based Steward Health Care, which then missed its own deadlines and declared bankruptcy amid a hail of lawsuits in 2024, prompting federal investigations in the U.S. The concession itself was ultimately annulled after a Maltese court deemed it “fraudulent.” According to the audit office and a 1,200-page magisterial inquiry, it was a ruse from the get-go. Advertisement In reality, Vitals was a thinly capitalized shell company conjured by a group led by Shaukat Ali, a prominent Pakistani businessman who was “involved at the highest levels of Colonel Gaddafi’s notoriously corrupt regime in Libya,” the inquiry concluded. Ali, it said, concealed the involvement of key Muscat allies — Schembri, the former chief of staff, and Konrad Mizzi, a former energy minister. The whole thing, in the NAO’s words, was “fraudulently contrived” ahead of time to rig the public tender for the hospital concessions, forgoing the usual due diligence process — and bypassing ministers who might have raised a stink. Through a series of holding companies registered in the names of his business associates (and his multiple wives), Ali also held beneficial ownership of the Steward subsidiary that would take over from Vitals, according to the inquiry. Kickbacks from the concession allegedly flowed through this opaque network into bank accounts held by Muscat, Schembri, Mizzi and a sprawling supporting cast of consultants and middlemen spanning several continents. Muscat, Schembri, Mizzi, Ali and all the other 31 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.  Investigators allege the arrangement impoverished the three privatized hospitals. Today, Gozo General, which caters to Malta’s second-largest island, reportedly remains derelict and rife with hazards. Karin Grech Hospital, named after a young girl murdered in 1977 by a mailed explosive intended for her father, barely survives in a state of desolate, cobwebbed disrepair as a clinic for the elderly. St. Luke’s, a limestone colossus with serried square windows in the style of a Victorian orphanage, stands unused beside it on a bleak promontory.  Lawyers representing Muscat, Mizzi and Schembri did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did Steward Health Care. Ali, through a lawyer, declined to comment, citing a court gag order. He has previously told the Times of Malta that “I feel that we have become the victims of a political football and the subject of vile allegations made by mendacious people.”  FAILED STING The Vitals scandal first trickled into public view through a series of investigative articles and a court case launched as a Hail Mary by a beleaguered opposition leader. Outcry built over the mishandling of the hospitals contract, and in 2019, Repubblika, the anti-corruption NGO, pushed for a broader trial, using a rule allowing civilians to trigger magisterial inquiries.  But since then, the judicial process has continuously run aground under strange and suspicious circumstances.   One notable incident took place bright and early on Jan. 7, 2022, just as the investigation was mounting. In Burmarrad, in the north of the island, a Maltese police convoy blazed down a lonely stretch of rural road, past off-licenses, a 16th-century church and a used car showroom, before taking a swift turn into a narrow side street.  Advertisement As dawn trickled in, the convoy approached its target: Muscat’s family home. It was meant to be the first shot across the bow as the probe got underway — but when the officers arrived to begin their search, trailed by several court experts, Muscat was ready and waiting, having been tipped off after news leaked that the raid was imminent. Far from an explosive and telegenic confrontation, the ex-premier cordially welcomed the officers, led them to his dining room and presented them with a sheaf of preprepared documentary evidence — then, in the aftermath, took to Facebook to blast the raid as an intolerable affront to his privacy. According to Robert Aquilina, the other co-founder of Repubblika, as well as police and court officials familiar with the investigation, the origin of the leak was a covert war between the magistrate’s office and the politically appointed police commissioner.  The police had shown scant initial interest in examining the journalistic allegations around Vitals and offered support for the investigation only when directly ordered to by the court, the police and court officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. That fostered an atmosphere of mutual distrust, prompting prolonged chaos, procedural stonewalling and repeated leaks of the investigative agenda. That’s how Muscat was able to get ahead of the raid; his phone was even wiped clean weeks in advance.  Jason Azzopardi, a prominent lawyer and former politician, testified in separate proceedings last year that he believed the leak came directly from Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà, based on a conversation he had with an unnamed person close to the commissioner. Gafà has in turn accused the inquiring magistrate of keeping him in the dark.  A spokesperson for the Malta Police Force said it “categorically rebuts the baseless allegations” regarding its relationship with the judiciary, which it said it cooperated with fully. The spokesperson added that Gafà was appointed following a public call and an independent selection process.  Advertisement To Aquilina, the co-founder of Repubblika, the affair provided an object lesson in state capture. The 47-year-old activist and notary has a taste for private nooks in public places, and on a morning last year he was sipping a dark coffee in the grand foyer of a hotel just off one of the main thoroughfares of the Maltese capital, Valletta. Sharply dressed, with browline glasses and the studied calm of a veteran conspirator, Aquilina likened the trial to the Italian “Maxi-Trial” of the 1980s, in which hundreds of Sicilian mobsters were rounded up and tried en masse in a specially built courtroom-bunker. But the difference, he said, is that “in Italy, the Mafia has infiltrated the state over many years — in our case, the Mafia has been elected.” CHILLING EFFECT Mafia-style violence, or the threat of it, has also pervaded the Vitals proceedings, which have been menaced by the memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a relentless investigative journalist who was among the first to uncover discrepancies in the Vitals concession, and was killed by a roadside bomb attached to the underside of her Peugeot 108 in 2017. After a concerted effort by her bereaved sons and a sprawling group of civil society activists, including Aquilina, the murder was connected to a businessman close to the Muscat government, and several low-level mobsters were recently convicted for carrying it out. Nevertheless, the events have left a conspicuous chilling effect on broader accountability efforts.  For instance, a number of independent court experts critical to the Vitals inquiry are refusing to testify locally. A Serbian court expert, Miroslava Milenović, declined to return to court after Muscat sued her following a dramatic hearing in which she admitted she wasn’t registered in Malta as a chartered accountant. Another, Jeremy Harbinson, has asked to testify from London, saying he would never return to Malta because he fears for his safety. Two people familiar with the matter said Harbinson has been nervous about visiting the country since 2022, when his hotel room was mysteriously broken into and his passport stolen during a trip to assist with the raid on Muscat’s residence. Schembri has since asked the police to investigate Harbinson, too. Neither he nor Milenović could be reached for comment. Aquilina himself told POLITICO that he requires constant police protection — which the police removed in July — and recently had to bat off domestic violence claims, which were ultimately dropped. The police said the removal of protection followed a threat-to-life assessment led by a multidisciplinary oversight committee.  Aggressive interventions by top politicians have also weighed heavily on the proceedings, with figures on both sides of the spectrum exploiting the intensely tribalistic nature of Maltese politics. Even the government has weighed in, seizing on the alleged unreliability of the court experts to dismiss the trial as a stitch-up. As it got underway last May, Prime Minister Robert Abela — Muscat’s successor — went so far as to blast the inquiry as a politically motivated attack by “establishment” forces. In a statement, Abela defended his comments, arguing that the former premier was entitled to the presumption of innocence — but then doubled down, urging POLITICO to “have a closer look at the happenings within the court process.” He also asserted, without offering evidence, that the court experts who refused to testify were hired by way of “opaque” processes and paid “millions of euros.”  Advertisement While some have condemned such comments as judicial interference, they also speak to genuine puzzlement at various aspects of the inquiry that have lent credence to the defendants’ claims of victimhood, including the apparent rift between the police and magistrates’ office, the absence of the court experts and seeming inconsistencies within the inquiry itself.  Consider the case of Central Bank of Malta Governor Edward Scicluna, who served as finance minister under Muscat and stands accused — in one of several parallel trials associated with a raft of lesser charges — of fraud and misappropriation, which he denies. In light of the institutional discord, Scicluna was never interrogated by the police and was notified of the charges against him via a leak to the media. The inquiry’s assessment of him is also contradictory and appears not to back up the fraud claims. Activists worry these sorts of discrepancies could bolster defense lawyers’ arguments that the body of evidence presented in the inquiry is inadmissible. Currently, the parallel proceedings are grinding through a preliminary information-gathering phase; an effective attack on the inquiry’s credibility could result in the evidence being thrown out before the prosecution gets to present it before a jury — killing the proceedings stone dead.  FINAL THROES  Indeed, some are nervous the whole thing will be a flop. Aquilina reckons it could go on until 2028 — and even then, he’s not optimistic much will come of it.  The grinding pace of the trial isn’t just an activist’s lament: It’s reflected in continued criticism from international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Council of Europe, which have accused Malta of being too slow in implementing anti-corruption reforms. The EU’s own annual rule-of-law report has consistently highlighted an absence of high-level convictions.  Prime Minister Abela rejected these institutional slights, arguing that he had strengthened Malta’s anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering authorities, bolstered the independence of the police and magistrates, and changed the rules around magisterial inquiries to prevent the system being “abused for partisan political aims.” (Critics say he made it harder for NGOs to trigger them.) He also pointed to recent praise from the Council of Europe and added that his administration had improved protections for journalists.  Advertisement “Our robust anti-corruption strategy has also served as a deterrent and the efficacy of such a strategy should not be measured by the volume of arraignments or convictions, but rather by the way such a strategy minimizes or eliminates corruption at the roots,” Abela said. He also emphasized that his government was pushing new legislation to support “sensible and responsible planning” and force “individuals who have erred in the past” to pay retroactive compensation.  But for those aching for a complete overhaul of Malta’s cozy culture of business, politics and corruption, there’s little cause for optimism. Despite the endless scandal, Labour maintains a consistent lead in the polls — a testament to the economic growth that took hold under its watch. The question is whether it can survive its links to Muscat. The former premier has been out of government since he resigned in 2020, after the investigation into the Caruana Galizia killing singled out a prominent tycoon with links to his ally, Schembri. (Both Muscat and Schembri have denied any involvement in the killing.) But he still looms large over the Labour Party, and many people made rich by his policies feel like they “owe” him, said one government official. On the flip side, recent polls suggest that the Nationalist Party is narrowing the gap under new leadership, with some arguing that Abela’s continued contact with Muscat-era officials — the premier said last month that he still talks to Schembri — could alienate moderates.  But a change in government might not matter much. Senior Labour and government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, argued that Labour’s problems were not unique and that the courting of foreign investors began under the Nationalist government that secured EU accession. It’s true enough: The country’s most influential property tycoon, Joseph Portelli, who is unconnected to the hospitals scandal, makes a point of donating money to both parties. (Portelli says he expects nothing in return.) The status quo is indeed sustained by an irresistible economic logic. In the view of Alexander Demarco, the deputy governor of Malta’s central bank, supporting the vast numbers of foreigners who enter the country requires continuous development — and on such a tiny island, the only way for developers to build is up. Blocking builders of high-rises could be a “serious impediment to economic growth,” he said, while emphasizing that such development should be limited to special areas. The Vitals debacle, meanwhile, continues apace. Recently, an international arbitration court ruled against government efforts to recoup some $466 million from Steward. Abela, during a heated parliamentary debate, said the judgment proved no money was stolen. Opposition lawmakers argued that the ruling — which explicitly holds “no view” on whether collusion occurred — did no such thing. Advertisement Still, some dare to hope that the trial around the deal, whatever its outcome, will serve as a break from a culture of impunity that has thwarted efforts to strengthen Malta’s institutions. “When there’s a public inquiry, people realize that politicians are not gods, and that they can be held accountable,” said Matthew Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist and one of the three sons of Daphne, the murdered journalist.  The bigger struggle will be to keep the momentum going. “While these people are being brought to trial, it’s also the system itself being brought to trial,” Caruana Galizia said. “Unless something is done about this impunity … there will be more of this kind of crime, more corruption, more contract killings.” ‘A COUNTRY HAS TO SURVIVE’ All of this, perhaps, is the inevitable fate of a tiny, resource-poor, services-heavy economy whose politicians have little to offer beyond privileged access to a market captured by private interests. Scicluna, the central bank governor, echoed that sentiment last year atop Valletta’s lush botanical gardens. A professorial 79-year-old who was summoned to serve under Muscat in 2013 after a long stint as a TV pollster, the former finance minister said he was proud of his tenure, during which he reduced Malta’s deficit and boosted financial stability. In his view, Malta’s woes are the result of bad actors exploiting loopholes created by otherwise legitimate government policy.  “If you bought a boat because you made a lot of profit from a government contract, then good luck to you — this is how people get rich,” he said. He took pains to add that he was referring to “legitimate” contracts. Advertisement But on the whole, Malta’s transformation has been to the good, he said. Under the cool evening sun, he turned to gaze over a low-rise wall giving way to a precipitous drop, and gestured below at a vista of seemingly boundless delights: sparkling Mediterranean waters dotted with colorful fishing boats, deep creeks giving way to soaring defensive ramparts, a small town of old limestone villas and pretty churches.  Right below, a little closer, he pointed out the wide bay and array of inlets that lie to Valletta’s east. These, he said, were the basis of a grand natural harbor that once made it such an attractive target for foreign fleets.  “A country has to survive,” he murmured, acknowledging that tiny nations have always had to find canny ways to win the protection of bigger powers. Now, of course, the Ottoman corsairs rot in the depths, and the bays are filled with gleaming superyachts and mountainous cruise ships. Perhaps such latter-day conquerors of Malta recognize that to get at the island today, there’s no need for a hard-fought siege. Instead, its leaders simply invite them in.