Labour MEPs Alex Agius Saliba, Daniel Attard and Thomas Bajada voted against a European Parliament resolution for continued support to Ukraine.
Agius Saliba justified the Labour MEPs' stance by saying it reflected the national interest as a neutral country.
“We cannot vote in favour of a resolution calling all member states to dedicate 0.25 per cent of their GDP to supply weapons to Ukraine," he said.
He said Labour MEPs could not approve of a resolution that called for the removal of an exemption that was meant to limit the use of Euroepan weapons on military targets in Russia.”
Only one other S&D MEP broke ranks to vote against the resolution on Wednesday.
PN MEPs Peter Agius and David Casa voted in favour of the final text in the resolution drafted by their grouping, the EPP, but voted against some of the amendments that were put forward.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament had been asked “to reaffirm its continued support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, and for the EU’s provision of political, financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support for the country for as long as it takes to secure Ukraine’s victory.”
The EPP resolution received the support of S&D, Renew, ECR and the Greens. The Left was split.
The vast majority of the MEPs belonging to the Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations, the newly formed far right parties in the EP, also voted against the resolution.
It was approved with 459 MEPs voting in favour and 137 against. 47 MEPs abstained.
In the run-uo to the EP June elections Labour had taken exception to the EPP proposals on security and defence issues.
Agius Saliba had warned that the EPP was bent on having the veto on security and defence removed.
Attard had insisted that Europe should “invest in diplomacy not arms.”
The PN's Casa and Agius said they had “voted against calls for minimum thresholds for material military support to Ukraine, but abstained on anything [we] felt was not applicable to Malta in view of our neutrality.”
Casa and Agius justified voting in favour of the resolution as a whole “so as to continue confirming our support for Ukraine against Russia’s illegal war of aggression.”