Editorial

The House of Representatives tomorrow will begin debating a Government motion recommending that a referendum on whether Malta should join the European Union at its next enlargement on May 1, 2004, be held "soon and at the opportune moment".

The debate is expected to last until Friday evening, enabling all MPs who wish to speak on the motion to be able to do so without restriction.

The government's motion refers to the association agreement signed in December 1970, and the formal application for membership of the EU in July 1990, in keeping with the government's mandate to seek membership, culminating in the invitation made by the Copenhagen summit to Malta (and nine other countries) to join the EU at its next enlargement in May 2004.

That invitation came after the Maltese government successfully concluded membership negotiations, obtaining no fewer than 77 special arrangements, including a protocol on abortion, a decaration on neutrality, a declaration on Gozo and a package of financial aid (amounting to Lm81 million in net receipts from the EU for the first three years of membership). So in keeping with its electoral promise made in 1998, the government is holding a referendum on the agreement reached in Copenhagen about Malta's EU membership.

The Prime Minister has declared that the referendum will go ahead despite a possible Opposition boycott. Some voices in the Labour Party are arguing that the referendum question only goes half-way: i.e. that membership should be presented as an alternative to the MLP's preferred choice of "partnership", and so voters should be asked to choose either one or the other.

Such reasoning clearly proves that the Labour Party is living in a dream world of its own. For one cannot, by any stretch, compare the solid package, complete with Lm81 million in net funds, to the inexistent conditions and unproved "advantages" (not to mention nil funds) of a "partnership" which exists only in the imagination of the Labour leadership.

For when the MLP speak of the "advantageous" features of such partnership they are only expressing what they wish such an agreement to contain. They have absolutely no evidence to show that what they desire is what they will get, still less that they will get it any time soon. For the European Union is now engaged in managing the greatest expansion in its history, set to take place in May 2004, and any further expansions and "partnerships" will have to be negotiated with 24 states, if Malta does not join. As one commentator put it, the EU will not be ready to conclude a "partnership" agreement with a Maltese Labour government before 2010!

Which brings us to further confirmation that the MLP is living in a dream world of its own: whereas nine of the ten acceding countries are holding referenda to determine the people's will, specifically, on whether their countries should join the EU, it is only in Malta that a major political party has declared a priori that it would ignore the result.

But the biggest proof that the MLP is cut off from reality is that it behaves as if Malta were the only country about to join the EU and that all the perceived disadvantages of membership - loss of sovereignty, higher prices, an invasion by foreigners, higher taxes - are peculiar to this blessed island.

When it does acknowledge that there are nine other countries besides Malta who are set to join in 2004, it quickly offers justification for them: the East and Central Europeans because they want to avoid reliving the experiences of decades of Communist rule and Cyprus (now there's a net contributor to the EU budget if there ever was one) because it fears Turkey. But for Malta? There is no justification at all, according to the MLP.

Whereas in truth, the very fact that nine other countries will join to make the EU a community of 24 states (and others set to join later) should be enough justification for us to join. Not joining will only mean isolation for Malta, a severe blow to our competitiveness as the new entrants grab important slices of the European market where their goods and services will have full and free access. More than that, they will instantly benefit from the scores of trade agreements which the EU has with individual countries and regional trading blocs - agreements which we would have to negotiate individually, taking us years. Yet the Labour leader equates membership of the EU with "closing doors" for Malta!

If this is not living in a dream world, what is? The only way to ensure it does not become a living nightmare for the rest of us is for the electorate to give a resounding Yes to the referendum question.