Opposition leader Bernard Grech on Thursday took part in his first summit of the European Peoples’ Party in a virtual manner.

He discussed a number of issues including the importance of the rule of law for the Nationalist Party, for Malta, and for the European Union, particularly the EPP.

He also spoke on migration and how this was affecting several countries as well as the EU and emphasised the importance that member states worked together to address the matter more incisively to obtain results.

He said that 80,000 migrants had entered Malta in seven years of a Labour government and the PN was calling for a national conference on population and migration.

Through such conference, all stakeholders would be able to evaluate the situation and the people’s preoccupation and prepare the basis for national proposals that would lead to a policy on the issue.

Grech also spoke on COVID-19 insisting on the need that all governments addressed this matter both at a country and at an EU level.

Malta on Thursday experienced a new record of cases with the country now having more than 1,000 active COVID-19 cases for the first time.

In spite of this, Grech said, the Prime Minister failed to apologise to those who lost their relatives, did not put students, teachers’ and parents’ minds at rest and had not yet assured businesses he had a strategy to ensure that jobs would not be lost.