Updated 1.20pm with Abela post
Malta has offered itself as a mediator for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg said on Saturday in the wake of a shocking public row between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.
Borg said he had reached out through private diplomatic channels to US officials to offer Malta’s services as a mediator, as he backed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s call for peace talks.
“I have no doubt that many other countries have also made similar offers, but we are ready and willing to provide a space for talks,” Borg said, noting that Malta has hosted top-ranking US, Russian and Chinese officials over the past year.
The Foreign Affairs Minister was speaking on RTK103, one day after US President Trump and his vice-president JD Vance gave Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a public dressing-down at the White House.
The public row shocked world leaders and derailed what was meant to be a signing ceremony for a rare minerals deal that would grant the US access to key Ukrainian natural resources.
Malta's low profile
Malta was among the few EU countries to avoid commenting publicly about the spat in its immediate aftermath.
Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said on X that he hoped Ukraine would “Stay strong, stay resilient, stay united” despite the pressure.
When approached on Saturday, a spokesperson at the Office of the Prime Minister said Robert Abela's position was reflected in Ian Borg's offer to host peace talks.
Abela later said that "nobody is a winner in war, and no sacrifice is too big for something as precious as peace."
While Maltese government officials kept a low profile, Borg implied that Malta backed Emmanuel Macron’s view of the ongoing conflict.
"There is an aggressor which is Russia. There is an aggressed people which is Ukraine,” the French President told journalists on Friday evening.
But if Malta is to play any part in securing peace, it must be wary of inflaming tensions or “attacking either side”, the minister argued.
Malta's call for talks reflects the position adopted by Italian leader Meloni, who said in a statement that it was time to meet and discuss "the great challenges of today, starting with Ukraine."
Every division of the West makes us all weaker and favours those who would like to see the decline of our civilisation," the Italian prime minister said on Friday.
Malta hosted a round of peace talks concerning the Russia-Ukraine war in October 2023, but with Russia refusing to take part in those talks the event went nowhere.
The country was more successful in building bridges in December 1989, when it hosted a high-level summit between US President George H. Bush and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev that is widely recognised as a key moment in the end of the Cold War.
Former MP Franco Debono recalled that success in a post on social media on Saturday morning, in a call he made for the Maltese government to broker peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
EU's challenge on defence spending
Speaking on RTK 103, Ian Borg said the key question for Malta was where it would stand when the EU moved to significantly ramp up its spending on weapons and ammunition.
That is likely to be a major stumbling block in the EU’s drive to adopt a common front, given that many foreign policy decisions require unanimity among member states.
Hungary, led by strongman Viktor Orban, is at clear loggerheads with the general position adopted by other EU leaders. And in Borg’s view, other EU member states will also baulk at some of the armament spending proposals being floated within Brussels corridors.
Both Borg and Prime Minister Robert Abela have said Malta should spend more on defence, without entering into specifics. In a Times Talk interview published this week, Borg made it clear Malta's neutrality was not up for discussion.
Personality clash at White House
Borg said Friday’s row between Trump, Vance and Zelensky had benefited nobody but that the relationship could be repaired.
“There was a personal element to it,” he said of the clash, noting how Vance and Trump had raised unrelated issues such as Hunter Biden’s laptop or Zelensky visiting a weapons factory in Pennsylvania in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election – something Republicans say was tantamount to campaigning for the Democratic Party.
Borg’s Opposition counterpart, Beppe Fenech Adami, agreed that there was a clear personality clash on display.
Fenech Adami said Trump and Vance had emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged Malta to stand with Ukraine.
“Yesterday wasn’t an attack on Zelensky, it was an attack on the Ukrainian people,” Fenech Adami said. “We have to push back against the narrative that Europe has done nothing in this war,” he said.