Malta’s central bank chief Edward Scicluna will be formally charged with fraud and misappropriation in court this week, joining an illustrious group of European Central Bank policymakers who have faced criminal charges, convictions or even jail time.
Most such brushes with the law relate to periods when policymakers either operated as bank supervisors or served as finance ministers. By contrast, none of them appear to have resulted from the conduct of monetary policy, the ECB’s original core mission.
In Scicluna’s case, the charges relate to his alleged knowledge, while finance minister, of various schemes around a hospital privatization plan pushed by government colleagues. Scicluna is set to file a formal plea on Wednesday, having thus far neither admitted any wrongdoing nor indicated any readiness to resign from his current post.