Sixth seat should not be lost - Sharon Ellul Bonici

Christian Peregin catches up with the former Labour candidate who campaigned in Ireland against the Lisbon Treaty and finds out the "Eurorealist" wants to contest the MEP elections on the Labour Party ticket.

Malta will probably not lose its sixth seat in the European Parliament (EP) despite the Lisbon Treaty being "dead and buried", Ms Ellul Bonici told The Times.

The redistribution system of seats which the EP has already approved was developed from a report it commissioned following the membership of Romania and Bulgaria last year.

Since there were no objections to the new system, this point can easily be adopted if a unanimity vote is taken during an Intergovernmental Conference, according to Ms Ellul Bonici.

The report redistributed the seats for the 2009 European elections and the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty was not necessarily required in this case; so Malta should still gain a sixth seat, she says.

Ms Ellul Bonici has been campaigning aggressively in Ireland in the past months to ensure a no vote. This was a tough process but, despite all the major Irish political parties campaigning for a yes vote, the no vote grew to 53.4 per cent from 14 per cent in just six months of campaigning.

Speaking from her office in Brussels, she criticised the fact that the Maltese Parliament unanimously approved the Lisbon Treaty in less than three hours before the actual text was available in a consolidated, readable format. This showed a sense of arrogance in the same way that not allowing a referendum in all other states, except Ireland, was arrogant.

Ms Ellul Bonici echoed remarks by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, the leader of the Campaign for National Independence, saying that, if a referendum had been held in Malta, the result would have been negative, even if the two main political parties united to campaign in favour.

She refers to an EU Barometer survey that found 52 per cent of the Maltese were against the European Constitution, which she says was practically the same thing as the Lisbon Treaty.

The Lisbon Treaty aims to delegate much of the decision-making powers from member states to unelected civil servants at the European institutions, she insisted.

"With the Lisbon Treaty, Malta would have lost more voting powers in the Council and with 68 new areas decided by qualified majority voting and an increase of 105 Union competences, our powers of self-government would be diminished considerably," she said.

"The Lisbon Treaty would also pave the way for a European criminal justice system, complete with a federal police (Europol) and a European Public Prosecutor within the framework of 'Eurojust'.

"It would establish a 'common defence', specifying that member states should increase their military spending and establish a 'permanent structured cooperation', which is Eurospeak for European armed forces."

Ms Ellul Bonici stresses that Malta can no longer look at the EU from the perspectives of yes or no. The Nationalist Party should not be afraid of criticising the EU and those who were Eurocritical should work within the framework rather than remain outside, she adds while specifying that she would rather be called a Eurorealist than a Eurosceptic.

She says it is pathetic to see Maltese politicians and the media panic over "losing" the sixth seat, when much more is at stake with a treaty that centralised power to such an extent that the EU would have even superseded the federal level.

Ms Ellul Bonici intends to contest the MEP elections and, following a meeting with new Labour leader Joseph Muscat last week, her preference is to do so on the MLP ticket.

"But if the Labour Party does not want to accept me as I am, with my critical point of view, I will contest with the EU Democrats Party (EUD)," she says.

Ms Ellul Bonici is the vice-president of the EUD, a political party that she founded together with Jens-Peter Bonde and includes MEPs who sit with the Independence/Democracy group in the EP. Despite this, she would be happy to sit within the European Socialists group (PES) if elected as a Labour MEP.

Ms Ellul Bonici is hopeful about the new "colourful" leadership of the MLP and is willing to reconcile, although she thinks Dr Muscat's decision to coin the term "amnesty" was inappropriate.

She feels she had done nothing wrong when her candidature was withdrawn by the party's Vigilance and Discipline Board.

She describes the MLP as her "natural home" but adds that she would like to see it become more progressive and open, especially on issues such as divorce, gay rights and other standard European rights.

"I think Joseph Muscat is doing an excellent job in bridging the gap - one can only hope that this effort develops in the right direction. Having different shades in a political party is healthy. Our foundation should be our social democratic principles. I consider myself to be a social libertarian, so the left is still my home," she adds.

Although she openly thinks Jason Micallef is not the right person to be party general secretary, she is ready to work with everyone so long as they are tolerant to the views of others.

Ms Ellul Bonici hopes that if the EU has to face another treaty there would be a serious non-partisan debate in Malta and that the decision should be taken by a popular vote.

In response to those who call her an opportunist, Ms Ellul Bonici points out that she had worked abroad on various occasions and was offered to work in Brussels in 1999, so she did not need full EU membership to get a job there.

She adds that without Eurocritical watchdogs like herself, no one would know what is really going on in the EU, which could otherwise easily consolidate into an anti-democratic totalitarian regime.