Former Foreign Minister Michael Frendo has called for a rethink of Malta’s relationship with NATO and for constitutional changes that would do away with the “passé terminology defining ‘neutrality’”.
Writing on MaltaToday, Frendo confirms the decision to join the contentious Partnership for Peace was taken just in the wake of the election as it was never decided under his responsibility.
However he says he agreed “fully” with the government’s decision to reapply for membership into the NATO-led initiative, scrapped by Alfred Sant’s government in 1996.
“In line with rejoining Partnership for Peace, in my opinion, the time has come for a serious unemotional debate to be carried out on Malta’s general relationship with NATO since, post-Cold War, this organisation has a changing collective security role also espoused by many non-member countries such as, for example, Russia and Algeria,” Frendo writes.
“We need a full, serious debate of Malta’s long-term interests in a changing global milieu. While considering the continuing benefits of Malta being the ‘friendly face of Europe towards its southern neighbours’ and a ‘trusted interlocutor’ (as amplified in the Strategic Objectives of Malta’s Foreign Policy document), this debate should also extend to the passé terminology defining ‘neutrality’ in our Constitution.”
The decision to reactivate Malta’s PfP membership has reconfirmed Richard Cachia Caruana’s crucial role in Maltese politics after a brief period in the cold.
Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU and the only unelected Cabinet member has now found himself yet again enjoying high influence under Tonio Borg, as the PfP decision on the morrow of the election reveals.
Government is claiming it is reactivating membership because it was being excluded from foreign policy and security talks at EU level due to its non-membership of the PfP.
But although the problem is said to have “existed for years”, discussions on joining the PfP never took place in the previous legislature.
It was previously understood that the reactivation of the PfP membership was not going to be considered, a pledge undertaken by former PN leader Eddie Fenech Adami back in 1998.
Meanwhile Labour’s Education Secretary Wenzu Mintoff also agrees the neutrality clause should be reinterpreted but expresses his disagreement at the way Malta joined PfP.
“Neutrality is not in itself a principle,” he says in an interview with MaltaToday. “It made sense in the bipolar cold war scenario. We need to reinterpret its meaning. For me what is important is that we are not lap dogs of the world’s only remaining super power. … We have to see what PFP really is. If it is simply a peace keeping exercise we should not have any ideological hang ups. But if it’s just another way to increase NATO control over other nations it’s another matter. What’s sure is that it was not the best time for such a decision. It was not the best way to engage with the opposition in a situation where the government does not even have the support of the majority of the population. Surely this decision did not represent a new start for a less divisive style of politics.”