The Nationalist Party has just approved a political document that some critics have dismissed as waffle. It talks about the importance of values, they say, but so broadly that there is little room for disagreement.

The lack of room for disagreement, it should be said, is partly a result of the PN's electoral successes. What were once controversial values have since become generally accepted. Polysyllabic terms like "social dialogue", "solidarity" and "subsidiarity" were once mocked; today, they trip off the tongue and everyone insists on them.

The task for the PN is therefore to re-embark on an exercise it has performed at other times in its history. It needs to move beyond what is generally accepted and to specify the values that it considers to be important for today's politics, economy and society.

Paul Borg Olivier, the PN secretary-general, has said the document must therefore be understood as signalling the beginning of the process of wide consultation and debate. For him, therefore, the document could not pre-empt the discussion.

Eventually, however, the values to be given priority will need to be specified. And the process by which the party gets there has its dangers. Six of them, in particular, could each deserve a column. Here, they can only be listed. Two have to do with difficulties facing Christian Democracy everywhere.

First, nowadays, Christian Democracy is often confused with Christian conservatism. This is partly due to the Americanisation of European politics but there are other causes.

Whatever they are, however, it is a far cry from the late 19th century origins of such political parties, where what distinguished them was not so much a Christian identity as much as their democratic credentials. The majority of Christians were monarchists (or worse, sometimes). But Christian Democrats, who only reluctantly incorporated the term "Christian" as part of their name after World War II, were traditionally associated with a progressive agenda that was neither socialist nor liberal.

Those origins are forgotten by many today. The danger for the PN, as a Christian Democrat party, is that the process of consultation may be derailed, probably unwittingly, by a Christian conservative agenda.

The second difficulty is that, in the face of this danger, there is no easy model elsewhere to be followed. Christian Democrat philosophy still dominates the architecture of the EU. But in this sense, it is the patrimony of everyone. Following the heyday of the 1950s and 1960s, many Christian Democrat parties went into decline.

In most European countries, they have had to articulate policies of compromise, as part of coalition governments. Romano Prodi attempted a 21st century project in the worst of circumstances. The most vibrant Christian Democrat movements today are, in my view, trade union movements.

The next four difficulties have to do with the nature of the PN. As before, some of them are a reflection of the party's electoral success.

One has to do with the nature of the party's base. The party may be Christian Democrat but it is a household with many mansions. It grew to command over 50 per cent of the vote by absorbing voters from the left and the right.

The party's deliberations will reflect this pluralism. On its own, the bottom-up approach will not produce harmony or coherence.

Second, however, the party is embarking on this project while in government. Its big hitters are ministers, without enough time, probably, for the necessary reflection.

Third, the leader, Lawrence Gonzi, is an articulate man of principle, but, unlike his immediate predecessor, tends to think most naturally from detail to broad concept rather than the other way round. It took him time to articulate Vision 2015. Even now, it is still essentially a set of strategically economic goals.

He will need to speed up the process by which he spells out, for himself and others, the social implications of the economic strategy. Given the other difficulties, his input will be crucial.

Finally, the PN may mistake its own identity. Although its adversaries like to characterise it as a wily pragmatic fox, this is not the picture the party has of itself. This picture, rather, is of a party that has never been afraid to be intransigent on whatever was crucial for Malta's liberty and identity: independence, first, and then EU membership.

Not having a big issue to be intransigent about may tempt some members to look for one - and to find it in some defence of "traditional values" that will become another great siege.

If that happens, it would be a tragedy. Not because there are no values worth fighting for. Of course there are. Not because we live in a post-ideological age. Because we don't.

But because the party's identity is that of standing up for positive liberty - not a defensive understanding of power but an optimistic conception of the fraternal cooperation of humanity.

We live in an age where the need for the characteristic Christian Democrat approach has never been more pressing and where the means to fulfil it have never been more promising.

ranierfsadni@europe.com