EP elections candidates agree on need of national agenda

Five candidates for the European parliament elections yesterday agreed during a debate at the university there is need for a national agenda and for Malta's MEPs to present themselves as a united front in the EP.

The debate, organised by the Studenti Demokristjani Maltin, was chaired by student Frank Psaila and included the participation of Nationalist Party candidates Joanna Drake and Joe Friggieri, Labour Party candidates Glenn Bedingfield and Joseph Muscat and Alternattiva Demokratika candidate Arnold Cassola.

Mr Muscat said now was the time for a new form of politics.

"The people know where I stand. I campaigned against EU membership but after the people voted for membership, I was among those who insisted that the people's decision should be accepted."

Although Labour had been against membership because it believed this was not the most advantageous option for Malta, it had always preached European values.

Mr Muscat said that Malta's MEPs, irrelevant of which party they represented, should work together on the areas they agreed upon.

"It is no longer the time of red or blue, issues should now be either black or white. There will be areas we will agree upon and others where we will not. We have to work in favour of the people we are representing, in our case, the workers."

One of the things MEPs had to do was to meet for at least a couple of hours weekly to discuss issues so that the Maltese group would present itself as a united front.

When it was pointed out to Mr Muscat that the MLP, which boasted that it had always been on the forefront to promote women, did not have a female candidate, Mr Muscat said this was true and it was something the party could have developed better.

Those who were interested in contesting the EP elections on the MLP ticket first had to apply to the party administration and then obtain 70 per cent approval by the party's general conference.

Unfortunately, although there were two women who applied none had obtained the required support by the general conference.

This, he said, could be one of the issues the party should deal with next time round.

Mr Bedingfield said the people were now realising who had always said the truth about the EU.

"The stars never blinded us. We have always said there were positive and negative aspects to membership. Unfortunately, what we said before the election is now taking place."

Mr Bedingfield said that the first to be affected by membership were the workers and small businessmen. But now that Malta was a member one had to start thinking in a new way.

"If we are in the EP we are there to represent Malta. The EU is no longer an issue. The people voted for it on April 12; they will now be voting to see who they wanted to represent them. It is important for the people to elect those who always said the truth and who know what the people are feeling."

Mr Bedingfield said he believed in the Maltese and in Malta, which was now a member of the EU, and if all MEPs toed the same line, Malta could make progress.

Instead of looking backwards one should look forward to see how to make the best out of the people's choice.

Prof. Cassola said this was a different election to others held in Malta. For the first time at least since the 1930s, this was an election which was not electing a government, it was not electing a majority, it was being held in a national district and one would be going to a parliament where there were more than two parties represented.

He said the biggest party in the EP, the European Peoples' Party, did not have a majority to change a vote and required another 130 odd votes from the other parties to do so.

This, he said, was removing from parties the fear factor with which they used to threaten people. Prof. Cassola said that when he contested other elections he used to be told by people that they would like to vote for him but they could not risk doing this.

Prof. Cassola said the former Prime Minister had sowed fear in the people when just hours before the general election he had said that a second preference vote to AD would be a vote against the PN.

Prof. Cassola said he believed AD would now benefit from what Eddie Fenech Adami had said then because the people later realised they had been tricked and EU membership was now no longer at stake.

About Malta's Euro parliamentarians, he said that "in the EP we have to pool our resources. There has to be a give-and-take attitude. We have to lobby to get something. It will be a win-win situation".

Dr Drake said Malta had, in the past 14 years, wasted a lot of energy debating whether or not the country should be an EU member giving the national interest a second place.

The reason why she had led the Iva movement was to remove partisan politics from the EU debate.

She said that now that Malta was in the EU, the national agenda should be agreed locally and presented to the EP. This agenda should no doubt include the creation of employment.

"The EU will offer new opportunities but first we have to decide on our national agenda and then push it. We cannot afford to continue ignoring the national agenda.

"We have to see who, from the EP candidates, can push the national agenda on a European level. The Maltese had not yet realised the EU's potential, it being a market of 450 million people."

Dr Drake said the national agenda should also include making the country more competitive, showing the people where the opportunities to get funds were and emphasising tourism and encouraging more travel between EU countries.

She pleaded to students to pressure candidates to agree on an agenda.

Prof. Friggieri said it would have been disastrous for Malta had it not become an EU member. He had said this in the past and it was his objective opinion.

The importance the country had received since before it even became a member, he said, led to a bigger interest by foreigners in the country.

Every student, he said, should ask himself what he would have lost had Malta not become a member.

"You know the opportunities you will have are much bigger with Malta as an EU member."

Prof. Friggieri said that employment did not depend just on the country's economic situation. It was true that there was currently a high unemployment rate but would the country have been in a better position had it been out of the Union? He believed it would have been worse.

"One of the EU principles is solidarity and job creation. The Lisbon Strategy aims at every country reaching full employment. This is difficult but the EU has all the necessary forces to generate work. The EU also has a strong policy in favour of small and medium sized enterprises, of which in Malta there are a lot."

A student criticised Prof. Friggieri for contesting on the PN ticket when he had always been considered a free thinker.

Prof. Friggieri said this was a risk one had to face when accepting to go into the arena.