Charlot Zahra
Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) chairperson Arnold Cassola yesterday slammed the award by the Nationalist Government of the contract for the extension of the Delimara Power Station to a company that will be supplying a plant operating with heavy fuel oil.
Addressing a press conference on jobs at the party’s offices in Sliema, Cassola said that the Nationalist administration “has made a mistake and shown its hard-headedness when purchasing the power station turbine operating with heavy fuel oil in Delimara when there is much cleaner technology available.”
Regarding the economic crisis, Cassola said that “we have to concede... that is a crisis that is coming from abroad. We cannot blame the Maltese Government exclusively for what is happening.”
But despite all the bickering on television between the main parties and the negativity – “because you have not done this and because you have done this” – there was however a topic on which everybody was now agreeing – the need for work.
Now Malta had to see how to tackle this problem, and that was one of the main aims of AD.
“AD is proposing the ‘Green New Deal’, which is a new pact for work,” Cassola said.
“We want to create work in those sectors about which we did not think till now,” the AD leader explained. “The economic crisis has led us to change our sources of energy and think of alternative energy sources.”
Cassola insisted that had it not been for the crisis, “we would not have changed our sources of energy.
“If it had not been for climate change – and the world’s climate is changing, even in Malta, with deep cold in winter to searing heat for the next six months, where we do not even see a drop of rain – we would not have changed our lifestyle,” the AD Chairperson added.
Under the Green New Deal, “we will try to create five million new jobs in Europe in the next five years,” the AD leader pledged.
Cassola explained that according to a study commissioned by the Green Party in the EP to the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy on the feasibility of eco-industries found that the global market for eco-industries had a volume of around 1,000 billion Euros.
Cassola called on all AD activists not to be disheartened at the last four days of the electoral campaign.
Referring to the polls published in yesterday’s MaltaToday and other paper, he noted that there was a huge disparity between them. “In the polls you have the MaltaToday poll which shows that Cassola, together with Yvonne Arqueros, will be the fifth candidate that will obtain most votes in the EP elections.
“On the other hand, The Sunday Times is predicting that we will obtain 500 votes across the entire country with 0.25%. The polls have their validity. I do not think that Malta Today will be 100% correct, neither The Sunday Times will be 100% correct,” the AD chairperson insisted.
“We have to fight till the every end, until Saturday at 10pm, we have to do our best to convince people,” Cassola insisted. “If you think that after 20 years of activity, AD should have one of the six MEPs elected on 6 June, then you should vote for us,” he said to a huge applause of the activists present.
Cassola explained that unlike the Maltese Parliament, the EP had eight different political groupings forming it. “During the debate on television with AD, Simon Busuttil said that there was the need for a balanced representation in the EP.
“He is right – there is really the need for a balanced representation; we need to have a representation in as much different groups as possible,” he insisted.
If an AD MEP was elected, Cassola added, “Malta will have 500 deputies that can be lobbied instead of 450 (200 from the PES and 250 from the EPP, because there will be fifty Green MEPs that can be influenced.”
Yvonne Arqueros Ebejer, who is also contesting next Saturday’s EP election, expressed her happiness with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s declaration on the extension of maternity leave.
“I am very happy that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi at the end agreed with us on the extension of maternity leave,” Arqueros-Ebejer declared. “I am very satisfied not only for me, as by doing so, Gonzi agreed with what the Greens all across the EU have been insisting on the increase of maternity leave.”
Arqueros-Ebejer explained how AD has been insisting for the past four to five months that maternity leave should be increased for various reasons. “Irrespective of whether I am elected, hearing the Prime Minister declare that he now agrees with the extension of maternity has already been a victory for me,” she said to the applause of the activists present.
The AD candidate for the EP elections explained the Estella report in the EP did not only included the extension of maternity leave to 20 weeks but also provided for the introduction of paternity leave where men would stay with their families for a number of weeks.
The meeting was also addressed by AD candidates for the Local Council elections Michael Briguglio (Sliema) and Mario Mallia (Birkirkara), who were already serving in the two local councils respectively and were up for re-election on 6 June.
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