Pat Cox urges Malta to take definite decision on EU

The president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, has urged Malta to take a definite decision on whether it wants to join the EU by the time the accession treaty would be up for ratification.

The accession treaty would have to be ratified early next year if Malta manages to conclude negotiations by the end of this year.

Mr Cox was speaking to reporters after he addressed the 15 EU leaders taking part in the first day of the Seville summit.

Asked for his reaction to the statement made this week by Labour Party leader Alfred Sant that over the past months he had increasingly come to believe that it might be better for the country as a whole to totally shelve the EU membership/partnership issue for a few years, Mr Cox stated: "Dr Sant and the Labour Party have every right to express their own view of what they will do if they are in government.

"All I hope is that by the time the EU gets to the stage of the EU accession treaties, Malta would have made up its mind on what it wants to do. We have to live with everything Malta wants. But will you please decide? Don't give us hot one day and cold another. It's your debate, your sovereignty, it's your right; but can you exercise it in time to let us get on with the rest of the business?"

Mr Cox said that in November, the European Parliament would invite candidate countries to send elected representatives to the European Parliament to be fully integrated into the proceedings and a debate on enlargement.

As a sign of support for Malta to be given another seat in the European Parliament, Mr Cox said that they would be inviting Malta to nominate six, not five representatives. In the Nice Treaty, Malta was allocated five seats but the Maltese government insists it should be given an additional seat to be at par with Luxembourg.

Addressing the 15 EU leaders, Mr Cox said that the European Parliament believes that politically this is the year of enlargement.

"No problem will be solved, and nothing simplified, by postponement."

He said that Parliament had been playing, and would continue to play, a vigorous role in promoting enlargement and maintaining all necessary momentum in the enlargement process.

Mr Cox said that there was an "unmistakable sense" that candidate countries were reaching the limits of their elasticity and that they could not keep stretching.

"We cannot let them down," he stressed.

On behalf of the European Parliament, Mr Cox appealed to the EU leaders to set up a comprehensive road map for the period after the Copenhagen summit in December where negotiations with up to 10 candidate countries will be closed.

He said he appreciated that there was a need for debate on direct payments but the EU must start moving towards the macropolitics of enlargement itself in all its aspects: "It is time to sell enlargement to the people."

On the second referendum in Ireland over the Nice Treaty, Mr Cox said he was hoping that the EU would deliver a declaration on Irish neutrality, which he would strongly support. He said he would personally actively campaign in the next referendum to secure a positive result.

"To the other member states and institutions who may consider themselves concerned, I ask you to give Irish politicians and the Irish electorate sufficient space to decide their own outcome," he said.