Partit Nazzjonalista (PN)
EU RANK: 66 (Tier 2: High Performance)
The Nationalist Party is a centre‑right, Christian‑democratic and pro‑business party, firmly pro‑EU and a member of the European People’s Party (EPP). Led since September 2025 by Alex Borg, who succeeded Bernard Grech, PN serves as Malta’s main opposition force to the governing Labour Party. It won 41.7% of the vote and 35 seats in the 2022 general election, remained in opposition, and in the 2024 European elections advanced to three MEPs, with prominent PN figure Roberta Metsola re‑elected as President of the European Parliament, strengthening its European footprint despite domestic electoral defeats.
Disinformation and alternative media
PN operates a substantial party‑owned media ecosystem through Media.Link Communications, which runs NET TV, NET FM and the party newspapers In‑Nazzjon and Il‑Mument, giving it a powerful platform for partisan messaging alongside its digital channels. Malta’s media‑pluralism assessments describe high political parallelism, with ONE (PL) and NET (PN) shaping much of the television landscape and reinforcing polarised narratives, though both remain subject to constitutional impartiality rules enforced by the Broadcasting Authority. While PN’s channels clearly promote party lines and attack rivals, available monitoring and litigation research carried out for this article do not identify systematic large‑scale disinformation operations, foreign‑driven propaganda campaigns or organised networks of fabricated “news” comparable to some other EU contexts. PN also relies on independent outlets like Times of Malta and MaltaToday when campaigning on governance issues, notably the hospitals concession case. Disinformation/alternative‑media DMI risk is moderate.
Foreign influence and external alignments
PN is firmly pro‑EU, Atlanticist and aligned with the EPP, positioning itself as a rule‑of‑law and good‑governance advocate within Malta and Brussels. Like Labour, it receives a 100,000‑euro annual parliamentary grant, which has been the only regular public party funding in 2020–2024, and raises the bulk of its finances from private donations regulated under the 2015 Financing of Political Parties Act. Donation‑transparency gaps are a systemic problem: research estimates that roughly 99% of donations to major parties PL and PN fall below the 7,000 disclosure threshold and remain unattributed. PN has been criticised for failing to publish required accounts and donation reports in some recent years, but there is no concrete, court‑tested evidence of hostile‑state funding, foreign control or links to authoritarian actors. Foreign‑influence and external‑alignment DMI risk is moderate (systemic opacity but no specific hostile‑influence findings).
Media capture, advertising and public service media
Through NET TV/FM and its newspapers, PN holds direct editorial control over significant broadcast and print outlets, a situation EU media‑pluralism monitors flag as a structural risk for media independence. At the same time, PN frequently complains about bias at the public broadcaster TVM/PBS, and Broadcasting Authority rulings in 2024–2025 have upheld some PN complaints about unbalanced coverage, reinforcing its narrative that PBS favours the incumbent government. PN benefits from party‑owned media but has less leverage than Labour over PBS appointments and government advertising flows, which watchdogs criticise as opaque and potentially tilted towards outlets close to incumbents. The party has not been shown to use state advertising to reward allies in the same way a governing party might, but its ownership of NET entrenches partisan broadcasting as a core feature of Malta’s media system. Media‑capture, advertising and PSB‑control DMI risk is moderate.
Corruption, litigation and institutional integrity
Compared with Labour, PN has faced far fewer major corruption or criminal‑law exposures in 2015–2025; litigation research notes no equivalent to the hospitals or Electrogas criminal charges being brought against PN leaders. Instead, PN appears primarily as a litigation actor challenging government conduct: most notably, former PN leader Adrian Delia’s civil suit against the hospitals concession led to the 2023 judgment annulling the 99‑year deal for fraud and non‑performance, upheld on appeal, and PN has since pressed for recovery of public funds. The party also won a 2018 Constitutional Court case that curtailed the Electoral Commission’s quasi‑judicial powers under the party‑financing law, citing fair‑hearing concerns. Allegations about PN’s own party‑financing compliance surface in media reports, and donation opacity is a shared systemic issue, but there are no recent major criminal convictions of PN leaders for corruption in the period covered. Corruption and institutional‑integrity DMI risk is moderate (system‑level finance opacity but limited direct criminal exposure).
Press freedom, harassment and treatment of media
PN straddles two roles in Malta’s press‑freedom environment: owner of clearly partisan outlets, and opposition critic of state capture and impunity in cases like the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination and the hospitals concession. NET and PN‑aligned papers provide a strong voice against Labour, but independent outlets and civil‑society groups remain crucial for investigative reporting, and PN has aligned with them when calling for accountability on corruption and media‑freedom issues. Litigation files record some libel and civil disputes involving PN, for example, Simon Busuttil’s libel action against Labour, but not a pattern of SLAPP‑style suits aimed at silencing journalists. Overall, PN participates in a highly litigious media culture yet also leverages investigative journalism and court findings to challenge government abuse, rather than systematically harassing reporters. Press‑freedom and harassment‑of‑media DMI risk is moderate.
| Dimension | Risk level | Short justification |
|---|---|---|
| Disinformation & alternative media | Moderate | Owns NET TV/FM and party newspapers in a polarised system; strong partisan framing but no evidence of large‑scale fabricated‑news or foreign‑driven disinformation operations. |
| Foreign influence & external alignments | Moderate | Pro‑EU EPP party; receives parliamentary grants and opaque private donations in a system where 99% of major‑party donations are unattributed, but no specific hostile‑state funding cases. |
| Media capture & advertising / PSB control | Moderate | Direct control of NET and print titles gives significant agenda power; limited influence over PBS compared with governing party; benefits from partisan broadcasting in a high‑risk media‑pluralism environment. |
| Corruption & institutional integrity risk | Moderate | Few major criminal cases involving PN leaders; instead acts as successful plaintiff in hospitals concession litigation, though systemic finance opacity and some compliance concerns remain. |
| Press freedom & harassment of media | Moderate | Owns partisan outlets and engages in political libel disputes, but also relies on and supports investigative journalism against government abuses; no strong pattern of SLAPP‑type harassment of reporters. |