To us in the Nationalist Party, the Copenhagen Summit has brought to an end a 21-year journey.
It started on December 12, 1981, election day, and ended with the start of the summit.
I am proud to have followed Eddie Fenech Adami all the way through.
The 1981 election is particularly remembered for the gerrymandered result, when the majority of the people were deprived of the government they voted for.
What we tend to forget though is that in our 1981 electoral programme we pledged, for the first time, to make Malta a member of the European family.
In the 1981 election, I had managed the party's team charged with overseeing the vote counting process. When the results came out, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici had to escort me out of the counting hall to prevent Labour thugs from lynching me.
The team had become known as tal-gakketta blu, remember? I was then accused of sedition, and the case before the criminal court took four years to be concluded.
Through the gunsmoke and teargas, Europe seemed a far-away, hazy objective then. Yet, we knew only too well where we belonged.
Labour's 1981 electoral swindle had led to one of the darkest periods of our political history. By 1986, the economy was in tatters, the island's key institutions were crumbling, human rights were systematically violated, unemployment was sky high, and you even had to go to Sicily to buy a bar of chocolate. We also had the murder of Raymond Caruana. They were most difficult times for us all, and for the country.
When the PN took over in 1987, the changes came thick and fast. As the PN's general secretary, it was a privilege for me to follow Fenech Adami's leadership in the creation of an open, prosperous and democratic society, a society at peace with itself and confidently looking towards a European future.
Following a short and disastrous Labour blip in 1996, the country turned once again to its chosen path. And Europe started getting closer by the month.
Today, as the country stands at Europe's threshold, my thoughts go back to that fateful Sunday afternoon, November 30, 1986. It was the day when the Labour regime and its thugs tried to prevent us from holding a mass meeting in Zejtun.
On that day, Labour treated us, Nationalists, like foreigners in our own country, barranin f'tal-Barrani.
Having been there, with bullets flying over our heads, behind Fenech Adami, watching the Maltese flag flying high, along with those of the other countries in the European family, at Copenhagen last Friday was literally a dream come true.
When we won the 1987 election, we all stopped being barranin at tal-Barrani.
Soon,we will stop being barranin in Brussels.
The journey has come to an end and I am proud to have walked it with Eddie Fenech Adami all the way.