The Cabinet of Minister has announced it will be reactivating its membership in NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP), in one of its first ‘surprise’ decisions taken since reconvening after the elections.
The new foreign minister Tonio Borg, said the country was facing problems at European Union level where Malta was being excluded from debates and denied access to certain documents, because it is not a NATO or PfP member.
But high-level sources have told MaltaToday the reactivation of the PfP had not been on the agenda of the previous legislature.
Asked about the timing of the decision, Borg said the problems at European level were being experienced well before the March 8 election.
However, the decision to reapply was only taken when the new Cabinet convened last week, partly in view of a defence summit scheduled for April.
“We informed the Opposition of our intention, but there was no discussion on the issue,” the foreign minister said when asked whether the Labour party was involved in the decision. “For my part I have no difficulty discussing the matter in parliament, possibly at the foreign affairs committee level.”
Indeed, the matter was only made public during the Holy Week activities in a press statement issued by the Department of Information.
Malta had applied to become a PfP member in 1995 but the submission was soon withdrawn when the Labour party was elected to power the year after. Labour factions back then had propagated the idea that membership in PfP would hinder Malta’s neutrality.
In its statement, the government is saying the decision to reactivate the application will “in no way affect Malta’s neutral status.”
Borg said that the decision to reactivate the application to join Partnership for Peace was taken at Cabinet level, and only after the legal implications were examined in depth: especially insofar as Malta’s Constitutional neutrality may be impacted.
“Considering that PFP members include neutral countries such as Ireland, Sweden and even Switzerland – which, more than neutral, is a ‘neutralised’ country – we felt that there was no real threat to Malta’s neutrality as a result of joining the programme.”
Borg also stressed that each member country applies to join Partnership for Peace on its own particular programme, drafted together with NATO and tailored to the country’s specific circumstances.
“Our programme will be limited to training, humanitarian aid, crisis management and similar activities,” he said.
The government says the reactivation of the PfP application is for Malta to be able to participate fully and unconditionally in EU organs, apart from the added benefits for the armed forces. It said it had been excluded from discussions on joint actions between EU and the NATO in the Balkans, because of confidentiality agreements between PfP countries and NATO over security policy documents.
The government says Malta’s eventual membership to the PfP was an excellent opportunity for the Armed Forces to participate in humanitarian and search and rescue missions, while benefiting from training opportunities in the case of natural disasters, and peacekeeping missions.

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The Partnership for Peace (PfP) is a programme of bilateral cooperation between former Soviet countries and NATO, to allow them to build up an individual relationship with NATO, choosing their own priorities for cooperation.
The purpose is to increase stability and diminish threats to peace through a partnership formed individually between each state and NATO, tailored to individual needs, ambitions and abilities.
Specific commitments are also made to promote transparency in national defence planning and budgeting to establish democratic control over armed forces, and to develop the capacity for joint action with NATO in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.
23 nations are members. It was created in 1994, soon after the collapse of the former Eastern bloc. Ten states which were members (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) have since joined NATO.

Members
Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan