Dr Alfred Sant's contribution in The Sunday Times last week once more projects the impression that there can exist some form of partnership with Europe which somehow is alternative to the one and only true partnership that can exist with the EU - namely membership.

Not only; he also projects the idea that his "partnership-from-the- outside" is to be considered better than the one and true partnership with the EU countries - membership.

This leads me, then, to embark on a Socratic dialogue and ask him one simple but fundamental question: With which Europe does he intend to negotiate his most cherished "partnership-from-the-outside"?

Naturally Dr Sant's answer can only be: a Europe inclusive of all the freshly admitted countries accepted as partners of the new enlarged EU, naturally minus Malta. It would have to be so since enlargement is intended to take place in 2004, with or without Malta, and Dr Sant cannot expect to negotiate such a partnership from the outside before 2004, at best.

This means that Dr Sant is envisaging a scenario where, only a few months after enlargement without Malta, and therefore only a few months after Malta, God forbid, would have rejected entry, Dr Sant would be starting to negotiate a deal with the new EU based on the idea of a "partnership from the outside" instead of one inside the EU. And a deal which, Dr Sant insists, would offer more advantages than membership.

I would then ask Dr Sant a second question: Would the newly admitted EU member states, which would have bargained so hard to acquire the best deal for themselves through membership and which would have considered membership within the EU to offer better conditions than a mere partnership from the outside, be prepared to offer Malta something more enticing than what they would have acquired in their negotiations?

Is it realpolitik to expect this?

I would also ask: Have the proponents of a "partnership from the outside" not learnt anything from the Irish referendum? Did the Irish, at first, not vote against the Nice treaty, and therefore against enlargement, because they were with great difficulty prepared to share with the enlarged EU the benefits that Ireland had enjoyed through membership within the EU?

In other words and put crudely, how realistic is it to expect that Malta can strike a better "partnership-from-the-outside" deal than that which the EU would have offered to the new entrants and, more important, how disposed would the new partners from the inside be disposed to do so?

Malta would be trying to sell them the lie of wanting to have the cake and to eat it at the same time when the new entrants would not even have tasted the cake yet.

I ask the question again: With what type of Europe would Dr Sant be negotiating this "partnership-from-the-outside" deal, seen this time from the perspective of the present 15 member states? They would represent a Europe which would be making the significant effort of absorbing nine new partner states within the EU, with all that means. How much would this Europe be prepared to burden further their taxpayers to give Malta a better deal "from the outside" than partnership within the EU would have entailed?

Would they be prepared to offer to a country that would have just rejected what for them would be considered as their best offer, namely membership, something more through a "partnership-from-the-outside" deal? Is it realpolitik to expect this?

Again: What type of Europe would Dr Sant be negotiating with? Not only would it be a Europe in the process of absorbing this latest round of enlargement without Malta but it would also be a Europe looking further ahead since there are other European countries knocking at the door to become members and others waiting for the opportunity to do so. Must Europe not consider this added long-term effort when negotiating any new "partnership-from-the-outside" agreements?

Put simply, would the EU therefore be prepared to give more to outside partners then to members? To my mind the answer can only lie in the wind!

The truth, unfortunately, is far more prosaic than Dr Sant implies in his article. It is only as members of the EU that Europe will really see us their real and true partners. Under any other form of international relationship, the single EU members can and must see us only as competitors from the outside and treat us as such.

Of course the member countries forming part of the EU will readily agree to negotiate any type of friendly economic, financial, political co-operation with Malta as they would be prepared to do with any other friendly non-European country. Malta will not be ostracised simply because we will not accept to become EU members.

However, we have to be very conscious of the consequences should, God forbid, we reject 'partnership-from-within' with the EU. By so doing it is inevitable that we cannot expect to be treated better than those countries which have accepted membership or to be given a better deal at their expense "from the outside".

Here lies, to my mind, the basic inconsistency in Dr Sant's argument when he states: "Labour's argument remains that the application of all the EU's rules and regulations to Malta just does not make sense - seen from the Malta end. As far as Brussels is concerned, their rules are their rules, and those who want to join must apply them."

If this be true, then how does Dr Sant expect a better deal "from the outside" from those very same people, by telling them that he only wants to enjoy the benefits "from the outside" without applying their rules "from the inside"?

In other words, Dr Sant is expecting that the EU be prepared to treat outside competitors to their market by allowing them to get away from their rules and at the same time, simply by calling themselves partners, give them more than the members inside, fully observing those very same rules.

Is this realpolitik?

Yet again: Which Europe would Dr Sant be negotiating with? It would be an enlarged Europe preparing itself to become more competitive on the global level through the single European market to face the competition arising from a more globalised outside economy.

The newly admitted members would have considered that only inside the EU would they be best placed to face the turbulent currents of international finance and trade by participating fully within the EU market as a bloc, a unity, a market of over 500 million people

They would then, together as true partners with the same economic interests, face third parties such as Dr Sant would have us, as "partners-from-the-outside". A "partnership-from-the-outside" must inevitably see Malta on the other side of the negotiating table to this economic and financial world power called the European Union.

This to my mind is realpolitik.

There therefore cannot exist any alternative to membership except non-membership. Malta can only either remain as it is today, namely a competitor to the single European market outside the EU, or become a true partner of the other EU members within the EU. There simply does not exist any half-way house!

It is vital for us all to understand this simple fact. It is important since it can only confirm that the decision to be taken at the referendum concerns one, and only one issue - whether Malta is to join the EU or not.

If the decision is positive then we have to unite behind the decision and go for it as a nation and reap the maximum benefits deriving from membership.

If the decision is negative then there exists no fall-back solution of some sort of partnership with that very same European Union in the hope that the EU would then somehow allow us to enjoy in full the advantages deriving from within the EU market without then observing all their rules.

Unfortunately there exists no other reality but this.

Dr Bencini is a member of the campaign team of IVA - the Yes to Europe movement.