Editorial

Malta's membership of the European Union had been the subject of local political debate at least since 1979, when the Nationalist Party first formally declared it would work to bring it about. It featured, with growing intensity, as an issue in all the general elections held since then, and the argument was frequently put that by giving the Nationalist Party an absolute majority of votes in all the five general elections since then, bar one, voters had implicitly endorsed Malta's prospective EU membership, considering that the Labour Party was campaigning against it.

That one exception was in 1996 when, on being returned to power after a nine-year absence, the Labour Party, under its new leader, Alfred Sant, 'froze' Malta's application to join the EU (submitted in 1990).

In 1998 the country was again prematurely called to the polls. Naturally, the EU membership issue featured in the campaign more strongly than ever before.

The Nationalist Party, returned to power with a five-seat majority, immediately wanted to make up for lost ground, reactivated the membership bid and managed to start negotiations with the EU together with other applicant states. That process (in which the Labour Party did not involve itself) ended with the Maltese government's acceptance of the membership package at the Copenhagen summit last December.

The Prime Minister, Dr Fenech Adami, then announced he would be holding a referendum, as he had promised in 1998, to ask voters whether they favoured EU membership for Malta. The Labour Party dismissed the referendum as a sham but at the same time directed its supporters either to vote No, or to abstain, or to spoil their ballot papers. Dr Sant insisted that only a general election would decide the matter, and that the MLP would abide by the people's verdict.

The referendum was duly held on March 8; 91 per cent of the electorate cast valid votes, and those who Yes prevailed over the Noes by more than 19,000 votes - it was obvious that the Yes camp included thousands of MLP supporters. Dr Sant illogically refused to accept the result, arguing instead that the MLP's 'partnership' option had "won" because "only" 48 per cent of those eligible to vote had said Yes. He again insisted that only a general election would definitely decide the issue.

Dr Fenech Adami took Dr Sant at his word and promptly called a general election, held just six weeks after the referendum. The Nationalist Party rightly argued that it did not make sense to vote Labour and deprive the majority of the desire to join the European Union which it had just expressed so decisively.

And so it came to pass; the Nationalist Party was again returned with a five-seat majority, and just four days after the election the Prime Minister was in Athens signing the EU treaty of accession on Malta's behalf.

At this point, the only honourable way for the Labour Party, and Dr Sant, was to bow to the people's verdict in favour of EU membership, thus recognising the "new realities". It is a perfectly logical position fully in keeping with the rules of the democratic game. Dr Sant, also logically, said the party would now work to exploit all the advantages of EU membership and guard against any potentially harmful effects.

But this is not the way former MLP leader and prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici sees it. He is now campaigning among party delegates to win support for his motion to be debated at the party general conference meeting next month, urging the party, in Opposition and in government, to insist on revising Malta's treaty of accession because of its perceived harmful effects on the economy, its alleged breaching of the Constitution and other unwholesome features. Even if KMB's motion does not explicitly state it, this would amount, as Dr Sant has pointed out, to undertaking to take Malta out of the EU.

So where, by KMB's vaunted logic, does that leave respect for the people's verdict, which the Labour Party has solemnly promised to abide by? Now that the people have spoken, does he want to prolong the EU debate, which has taken up - if not dominated - the better part of two decades, forever?

And if, God forbid, the KMB line were to prevail at the party conference, where would that leave the country's, not to mention the MLP's, credibility? Would not the resulting political instability and economic uncertainties, and therefore the threat of unemployment on which KMB harps so insistently, multiply themselves once Malta and the Maltese are perceived to be completely unreliable and directionless?

The consequences of the wrong Labour Party decision taken by a majority blinded by a misguided, reactionary motion, are too horrendous to contemplate. Let the party delegates weigh those consequences.