Setting the record straight

Your front page headline 'Labour planned U-turn on EU in 1997' (The Sunday Times, April 13) is as far from the truth as could possibly be.

It is simply not true that, as the article alleged, "The Labour government had set the wheels in motion to re-route Malta towards EU membership back in 1997".

As Deputy Leader Parliamentary Affairs, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, I can categorically state that as far as I know, at that time and during the whole of that legislature, there were no internal discussions held "as we believed it was high time to remove the EU freeze".

Your assertion that "...that is why the Labour government had decided to shift from its EU freeze, irrespective of whether it won the election on that ticket", is pure fabrication and untrue. This issue was never, ever raised at Cabinet level, at leadership level, during meetings of the administration, or during executive or parliamentary group meetings. Removing the EU freeze, or making a U-turn in our "European Union policy" was never raised as an agenda item during any of the meetings of these bodies in the party structure, in the period 1996-1998.

It is absurd to make people believe this was happening at the same time that I was heading a team from the foreign office through negotiations with the European Commission to arrive at an agreement based on the "official" party policy regarding our future EU relations, on which we were elected to office.

I should also point out that the article does not tally with what former Deputy Leader George Abela is reported to have said in his interview in the same issue of The Sunday Times.

Whereas you allege that this U-turn was planned in 1997, Dr Abela in his interview is reported as referring to an initiative which in your report is put down as "before he (then Prime Minister Alfred Sant) quit the Government". So if anything this must have been mid-1998.

Unfortunately, even Dr Abela is reported as having said verbatim that "We held internal discussions and believed it was high time to remove the EU freeze. I'll never forget that". I have to again refute this statement as not conveying the true picture of the situation then. Dr Abela speaks of Alfred Sant drawing up a position paper to start discussions with the Nationalist Party in a bid to lead to 'convergence' about EU membership, and refers to an article written by former Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, "precisely on this issue".

As clearly explained in Evarist Bartolo's article 'A convergence of initiatives' (The Sunday Times, May 31, 1998) and another article of his in Maltese, in L-orizzont two days earlier, for those who care to verify facts, there was never talk of abandoning our position on the European Union, or changing our policy to go instead for membership.

The whole concept of 'convergence' was based on the possibility of convincing the Nationalist opposition of the time to desist from continuing to be aggressive against our EU policy, by realising that what we were aiming to achieve in our relations with the European Union in no way barred any future Maltese government to proceed towards membership, if the people so wished at any future date.

'Convergence' was not 'consensus'. No side was proposing to change its policy to meet the other half way.

The 'free trade zone policy and the hammering out of a framework to promote further and deeper co-operation in the spheres of social, cultural, political, security, and environmental issues' was moving in the same direction, but not going as far as membership. The Nationalist opposition would have been coaxed into realising that what we were planning to achieve was, in itself, one of the building blocks of eventual membership, if one opted to go for it anytime in the future, as they believed they should.

'Convergence' would have helped defuse the political tension which had accumulated over the years over the EU issue.

Editorial Note: The assertions referred to by Dr Vella were not made by The Sunday Times, but by George Abela. This was made amply clear in the article, which quoted Dr Abela faithfully.