Alex Borg’s €25,000 Cap: The Maltese MP Betting His Career on Party-Financing Truth

Alex Borg vows to push for party financing reform
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Valletta – In a sun-splashed corner café just off Republic Street, Alex Borg drains his espresso and sets the tiny cup down like a gavel. “Every election we hand out ħobż biż-żejt and plastic fans, and every year we pretend it doesn’t cost anything,” the Nationalist MP says, voice low but steady. “The Maltese deserve to know who is really picking up the tab.”

Borg, 42, is preparing to table a private-member’s bill that would force political parties to publish quarterly donor lists, cap individual contributions at €25,000, and ban secret companies set up solely to funnel cash. The proposal lands in a country where party coffers have long been swollen by raffle-ticket sales, fireworks-festival sponsorships and, critics say, a wink-wink culture of “kitchen-shelf” envelopes slipped across parish-hall tables.

Local context: Malta’s 1995 Party Financing Act still allows anonymous donations under €7,000, a threshold that rises with inflation but not with public patience. The Venice Commission and GRECO have scolded successive governments for leaving loopholes wide enough to drive a festa truck through. After journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in 2017, her revelations about 17 Black and phantom offshore donors turned party financing from niche concern to national trauma. Yet reform bills have stalled twice, once under Joseph Muscat and again under Robert Abela, each time buried in parliamentary procedure faster than you can say “kwareżimal”.

Borg insists this time is different. “The bill is only eight pages, written in Maltese and English side-by-side so nobody can claim confusion,” he tells Hot Malta, sliding a stapled copy across the table. “We even asked the Għaqda tal-Malti to vet the language—no Latinisms, no legal jargon.” The move is culturally astute: in a nation where village band clubs debate lyrics for months, linguistic clarity is a love language.

Community impact is already visible. In Żejtun, Labour’s club president has invited Borg for a public Q&A—an olive-branch moment in a locality where PN flags are still viewed like stray cats: tolerated, not adopted. Meanwhile, PN’s Sliema committee fears big-business donors will flee to Labour if anonymity vanishes. “They’re terrified the cassata will stop arriving,” Borg jokes, before turning serious. “But voters are smarter than we think. When I explained the reform at a hunters’ rally in Rabat, the first question was, ‘Why €25,000? Why not €10,000?’ That’s when I knew the ground had shifted.”

Labour’s initial reaction was cool. Whip Glenn Bedingfield tweeted a photo of a 2015 PN fundraising dinner, captioned “Glasshouses, coloured glass.” Yet sources inside Castille admit back-channel talks have begun. One junior minister told Hot Malta, “If we oppose transparency again, we’ll lose the under-30 vote faster than a Gozo ferry in a storm.”

Women’s NGOs are watching closely. “We’ve seen how opaque money sidelines female candidates who can’t tap construction tycoons,” says Marceline Naudi, president of the Women’s Rights Foundation. “Transparent financing could open doors for candidates who rely on small, community donations—exactly the kind of politics Maltese mothers tell us they want for their kids.”

The Church, too, has weighed in. Archbishop Charles Scicluna preached last Sunday that “the soul of the nation is weighed on the scales of honesty,” a line many took as papal-code for “pass the damn bill”. Parish priests have long been unwilling referees between warring party clubs; some now volunteer church halls for neutral debates, provided donors are named upfront.

Borg’s bill faces a second-reading hurdle when Parliament reconvenes after the summer festa season. If it clears committee, it could become law by December—an advent calendar of accountability. Failure, Borg admits, would be “another brick in the wall of cynicism”.

As we leave the café, a tourist asks directions to the Upper Barrakka. Borg points the way, then quips, “Enjoy the view—and remember, up there you can see the harbour. Down here, we’re still trying to see who paid for the binoculars.”

The harbour glints, postcard-perfect, but beneath the azure glitter lies a nation tired of guessing games. If Alex Borg’s gamble succeeds, the next generation of Maltese voters may finally know who bought the fireworks before they explode overhead.