Dr Alfred Sant's opposition to Malta's membership of the European Union is of long standing and it is not fair of either Dr Sant's political adversaries or those who believe that Malta should become an EU member to suggest that it is the result of political convenience.

His opposition pre-dates 1998, Dr Sant's political annus horribilis, and the adoption of his oppose-everything-the-government-proposes stance, into which it so conveniently falls.

In this case Dr Sant's opposition is born of conviction and he has every right to his beliefs, as he has every right as the leader of a political party to try to convince the electorate to support his point of view. That is the essence of democracy.

But if the thinking sector of the electorate, which Dr Sant absolutely needs to convince, is to be convinced, the political platform put before it must possess substance. Equally solid must be the strategy employed to propagate and market it. I propose to examine both starting with the platform.

When Dr Sant became leader of the Malta Labour Party following its resounding election defeat in 1992, he presented himself as the shining example of New Labour, a leader bursting with new ideas ready to distance himself from the party's recent past.

At that stage he openly admitted that the Fenech Adami administration had an electoral mandate to seek EU membership but professed his opposition to membership.

Such a position, however, required an attractive-sounding alternative. Non-membership, the only logical alternative to membership, is too conservative, besides lacking vision, and required window dressing. So Dr Sant disinterred the notion, first broached in a January 1959 article by Dom Mintoff in The New Statesman when the latter was mulling possible policy options for Malta, of turning Malta into the Switzerland of the Mediterranean. (Incidentally, another possibility mentioned was that of joining the Common Market.)

Dr Sant disregarded the fact that the end of the Cold War had completely altered the international relations context in which Mr Mintoff's original musings had taken place. But by the time Dr Sant became Prime Minister in 1996 he had somewhat fleshed out his slogan by appending to it the objective of establishing a free trade area with the EU.

During Dr Sant's brief tenure of office this foreign policy objective led to two initiatives: the freezing of Malta's EU application, which required no sweat and provided instant gratification; and an attempt to convince the EU that Malta's proposal to enter into a free trade agreement overwhelmingly weighted in the island's favour should be agreed to. This required lots of sweat and it was soon obvious that there was not going to be much gratification involved, short-term or long-term.

The minutes of the 10th meeting of the EC-Malta Association Council (Luxembourg, April 28, 1998) report Mr Hans van den Broek, the EU's Commissioner for Enlargement, stating the Commission's firm stand. He declared:

"Clearly, a free trade area will have to respect WTO rules. And, before we can complete it, all existing obstacles to trade between us will have to be eliminated, in particular the discriminatory elements of the Customs and Excise Tax Act, which entered into force in July 1997."

Furthermore, the minutes of that meeting record Robin Cook, then UK Foreign Secretary, underlining:

"Such a free trade area should cover substantially all trade without excluding any sector. Agricultural trade should be progressively liberalised taking as a starting point traditional trade flows."

As to the participation of Malta in "certain Community programmes" these would be "considered on a case by case basis, under the conditions provided for in these programmes for third country participation". There was more of the same. No special deals for Malta.

That was as far as Dr Sant's government could go. Subsequently, he exercised his right to advise dissolution of Parliament and was voted out of office. Now let's examine Dr Sant's tactics.

From the very beginning he never spoke of "membership" but of "full membership", implying that there exists some other type of membership of which his alternative is one. This was successful in that he even conned some government members into using the term.

Finding himself once again in Opposition Dr Sant decreed that the government did not possess a mandate to pursue Malta's accession to the EU, while concurrently brandishing the Switzerland-in-the-Mediterranean option and carefully refraining from explaining what it meant. Instead he concentrated on honing the tactic of instilling fear of the unknown.

For a full four years he has targeted all sectors of the population. Hunters were told that their pastime would be banned; workers were warned that swarms of Sicilians would descend on Malta and take their jobs; prospective house-hunters were provided with visions of unattainable house prices because the property market would explode as invading hordes jostled to settle here at any price; dockyard workers were assured the shipyards would have to close; to nationalists of all hues was held up the prospect of loss of national identity and obliteration of the Maltese language; pro-life groups and staunch Catholics were informed that legalised abortion would follow; starvation was dangled before farmers and fishermen; the self-employed would go out of business as dastardly Europeans replaced them; students were assured that without EU membership they would still be able to participate in EU study programmes with no mention of the cost involved being made; pensions and social services would be eroded; and, we the taxpayers, made to believe that Malta would be a net contributor to the EU's budget. This list is not exhaustive.

Once the results of the government's negotiations started to become known, and as Dr Sant's nightmare scenarios increasingly lost credibility, the MLP machinery moved into damage limitation mode. Total negation became the name of the game.

None of the government's gains, we have been repeatedly told, is worth the paper they are written on. They don't exist. They are at best a chimera; at worst the lies of an exhausted Government reeling on the ropes. The transition periods secured, we are told, are ineffectual; the derogations obtained, useless. Yes, Malta will still be a net contributor. If you are in doubt ask Dr Sant.

A viable alternative became a must for the MLP. The question was how to conjure one. Overnight Malta as the Switzerland of the Mediterranean metamorphosed into a wide-ranging partnership, with the EU and with any other state that you may care to mention. As Lino Spiteri recently pointed out, the old-fashioned but still current name for this is bilateral relations.

Orwellian double-speak took over. Dr Sant's hopes are presented as achievements. Key persons within the EU have repeatedly emphasised that Dr Sant's à la carte mirage for Malta is just that. Although these are the very people he will have to negotiate with, the good Doctor persists in telling us that non-membership is a better deal for Malta.

Even Romano Prodi is supposed to favour partnership. When on December 10 an audience mostly of University students heard Charis Xirouchakis, responsible for the EU's Public Relations Council, unequivocally declare in answer to my question that the partnership option mentioned by Mr Prodi is meant for countries that cannot become EU members (e.g. Moldova, Morocco, Tunisia), and that it offers a far inferior deal for Malta, Dr Sant retorted that we should not take these people's words at face value. When I asked him why, by applying the same criteria, we should take what he says at face value, he had no real answer.

Similarly, he waves away the unpalatable fact that Malta as an EU member will help to shape policy, while Malta in an EU partnership scenario will have to swallow EU policy.

On December 17, during a debate with Dr Fenech Adami on RTK, he was asked by a caller to state specifically and concretely the assured alternative gains for Malta through his partnership option, in contrast to the tangible results obtained by the Government negotiating team. Typically he sidestepped the question. Yet his party's TV spots, exponents par excellence of double-speak, invite us to "Know the Facts" by presenting us with gossamer.

Having nothing substantial to put before the electorate in lieu of an earnest expression accompanied by repeated rhetoric, Dr Sant tries to turn the tables on his political opponents by tarring them with the same brush that blackens him: Be warned, he told the party faithful recently, you are about to be inundated with baseless propaganda. How true.

In the meantime he plays the underdog. According to him the MLP, with a TV station, a radio station, a Sunday paper and an electronic newspaper, has no real means of delivering its message effectively. The English language media, he claims, distort the party message. He ignores the acres of space regularly made available to him and his party stalwarts.

What Dr Sant can't stand, of course, is these papers' habit of asking inconvenient questions to which he has no answers. Witness this paper's recent leaders that elicited replies from Dr Sant that were long in the pen but short in substance.

Another tactic is to attack the individual not the argument. The people at the Malta-EU Information Centre (MIC) are a main target. Their fault: they deal in facts that expose the political corner into which Dr Sant has so successfully painted himself.

All individuals who publicly disagree with his stand on Europe, or who are involved with organisations that have fallen foul of him, are systematically targeted. The object being to try and browbeat them into keeping their criticisms to themselves.

Another tactic may see the light of day in the coming weeks. Dr Sant, who since becoming party leader has been speaking of democracy and transparency as if he possesses a monopoly on both, has repeatedly said he will not accept the people's verdict as expressed through a referendum.

Besides the obvious implication that he is expecting a Yes majority, Dr Sant desperately needs to extricate himself from this untenable position. He may be tempted to do this by ordering a boycott of the referendum.

He stands to gain two things: the possibility of questioning the legitimacy of the result if there is a poor turnout; and putting pressure on pro-EU Labour supporters. These will have to choose between toeing the party line or losing their right to the secrecy of the ballot as the MLP will know how they have voted.

This would be coercion if not outright blackmail since the MLP line is that one cannot be pro-Europe and an MLP supporter at the same time.

However, when all is said and done, one fact remains clear and uncontested. We know what EU membership implies. If we turn it down and give Dr Sant the chance to negotiate his partnership alternative, the country will have to start from square one.

Of course, Dr Sant claims that eventually he will obtain a better deal. He fails to explain how he will achieve this, or how he will prevent Malta from becoming isolated in an increasingly regionalised world, but he is adamant that he will succeed. What we do need to keep in mind is Dr Sant's own advice: Don't take what you're told at face value.

Professor Pirotta is head of the Department of International Relations at the University of Malta.