Editorial

Desperate situations call for desperate measures and there is probably no one in Malta in a more desperate situation, strategy-wise, than the former prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. He pretends not to be standing alone, and in his desperation invokes the 134,000 electors who in the April general election voted for the Labour Party. As if today he represents that mass of Labour supporters, when he has aligned himself with the man who brought his own government down and who Labour's supporters have in general rejected out of their system.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici is campaigning for a motion he is presenting to this week's MLP general conference, aiming to commit a Labour government to demand a renegotiation of the conditions Malta won in its accession negotiations with the European Union.

The motion leaves the door open on what the position would be should the other 24 member countries of the enlarged Union refuse to renegotiate - The Times in an editorial on October 27 said this lapsus vitiated the motion. In a radio debate with the leader of the MLP, Dr Mifsud Bonnici would only say that if that situation were reached, the party would then have to decide. As we say in Maltese, "mur obsor".

But Dr Mifsud Bonnici has now gone further. Answering last Sunday in It-Torca the editorial of The Times - without of course saying that that was what he was doing - Dr Mifsud Bonnici revealed the strategy he has in mind. His strategy is ruinous, tantamount to a minnow using strong arm tactics against the denizens in a sea of behemoths.

If the EU is not made to understand, in reasoned argument, the damage being caused to Malta by the accession treaty, he writes: "tasal biex tifhem bid-dnewwa, ghax Malta tibqa' f'kull decizjoni ta' l-Unjoni Ewropeja, li biex issehh irid li kull pajjiz membru jaqbel maghha, Malta ma tghidx iva sakemm l-Unjoni taccetta li tbiddel il-ftehim skond il-htigijiet ta' Malta". Meaning that wherever unanimity is called for in the EU's business, Malta would repeatedly withhold its assent until the EU accepted to change the membership conditions according to Malta's needs - a strategy which would be typically Mintoffian, if only it were not for the weakness of the argument. Dom Mintoff would never have made that threat in the circumstances of this case.

To strengthen his argument, Dr Mifsud Bonnici recalls that that was what Malta did in Helsinki in 1975, when European security and cooperation were being discussed. Which is true - Mr Mintoff's arm twisting got Mediterranean security included with European security.

But blackmail is where the similarity ends. Mr Mintoff had nothing to lose by his strategy in 1975, and prestige to gain. Which he duly did, getting the superpowers to accept his way of thinking.

In the present case, unfortunately for Dr Mifsud Bonnici, the scenario is different. In a case of obdurate defiance as depicted by Dr Mifsud Bonnici, what is to prevent the other 24 members of the enlarged union from turning the tables on Malta and themselves withhold what would be due to Malta, for its recalcitrance? Blackmail in this case would be a two-edged sword, tantamount to hara-kiri. Stand up those who want that.

Those who do not want it should also stand up. When the motion comes up for debate and vote at the MLP conference.