Sant wants decision on EU Constitution 'out of the way'

Labour leader Alfred Sant said yesterday the party should make a decision on the European Constitution now in order to get it out of the way and concentrate on the issues that affect the people.

Writing in the General Workers' Union's daily l-orizzont, Dr Sant commented on the no votes in the French and Dutch referenda on the Constitution, saying it would have been much better had these referenda been held two-and-a-half years ago to address the enlargement of the EU that was about to take place.

"But this was not to be so. What's done is done," he wrote.

The party is expected to decide about what stand it should take at a general conference to be held later this month.

A few weeks ago the party's parliamentary group announced it had decided to vote in favour of the Constitution when it is debated in Parliament. Soon after it was also announced that the party executive had "unanimously decided" that the party should be in favour of the constitutional treaty.

Former party leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici has launched a campaign to try and convince party delegates that, at best, the Opposition should abstain.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici has been pointing to what he says are Dr Sant's inconsistencies, the most glaring of which is his declaration that to abstain would create a mess when he had urged people to abstain in the EU referendum and had done so himself.

Dr Sant and Dr Mifsud Bonnici have exchanged salvos via the media, with the latter arguing that once Dr Sant was attacking the Campaign for National Independence (CNI), the organisation headed by Dr Mifsud Bonnici, it had no alternative but to defend itself.

Political observers believe that one of the main reasons behind the MLP's desire to back the Constitution is that if it wants to win the next election it has to appear to be in favour of the EU.

But those who are against EU membership and its Constitution argue that if the EU was indeed a good thing, the party should not have opposed membership and should have been in favour before the last election - which would have given it more of a chance of victory.

A survey conducted by Xarabank has shown that the vast majority of the MLP's grassroots are against the party's stand in favour of the Constitution.