Scaremongering gets us nowhere

In December 2001, prime ministers meeting in Laeken, Belgium agreed on a concrete objective: to simplify rules so as to make the European Union more transparent and bring it closer to its citizens. Nearly eight years later we are unfortunately not much closer to reaching this objective.

The whole process leading to the "Constitution for Europe", a process that can be referred to as the biggest ever effort to bring all said rules in one document, which is easy to read and, therefore, easy to understand, failed. French and Dutch voters voted against the Constitution because they believed the message churned out by the no camps that too much power was going to shift from national governments to the European institutions in Brussels.

The Constitution was therefore scrapped and another project was launched: the Lisbon Treaty. The Maltese government was very active during both the discussions leading to the Constitution as well as in the negotiations of the Lisbon Treaty. This resulted in final texts that benefited our country, so much so that our Parliament ratified both texts unanimously.

Regrettably, and for the wrong reasons, the Lisbon Treaty was recently forced back into Malta's news and with it came a resurgence of the same anti-EU rhetoric that failed so spectacularly in 2003.

This time, the usual suspects took issue with the so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights that is a part of the Lisbon Treaty. The Maltese government has consistently been unequivocally in favour of this Charter, as one would expect from the party whose history is endowed with constant support and struggle for fundamental human rights. The latest scaremongering tactic involves abortion and it is being argued that once the Treaty and, hence, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights come into force, a decision by the European Court of Justice could override our national laws and, thus, lead to the introduction of abortion by declaring it "a universal right within the EU". According to this flawed rhetoric, therefore, a decision of the ECJ could lead to the introduction of abortion in Malta.

In building this argument, no mention of Malta's Treaty of Accession to the European Union, which automatically became EU law upon its ratification in May 2004, was made. This is important because the Treaty of Accession contains a protocol which states that: "Nothing in the Treaty on European Union, or in the Treaties establishing the European Communities, or in the Treaties or Acts modifying or supplementing those Treaties, shall affect the application in the territory of Malta of national legislation relating to abortion".

It cannot be any clearer! Which is exactly what the government strived to achieve in its tough negotiations - an unequivocal statement that is not subject to any misinterpretation. The jurisdiction of the ECJ on fundamental rights would emanate from the Lisbon Treaty and such jurisdiction, therefore, could not in any way extend to an imposition on the Maltese government to introduce abortion in Malta.

The same people making these ridiculous claims also claimed that Malta's sixth seat, which will become reality with the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, came about almost by accident through a simple report tabled in the European Parliament. On this aspect, the Lisbon Treaty states that "...representation of citizens shall be digressively proportional, with a minimum threshold of six members per member state..." Again, it could not be any more clearly stated than that.

No matter how some try to twist it, nothing changes the fact that the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty will mean an extra seat in the European Parliament for Malta.

Should, as has been argued, our sixth seat result from anything other than the Lisbon Treaty, then if the Irish hadn't voted no to this Treaty, this June we would be electing six and not five members.

Now, as MEP candidates we have two options.

One option is to use this campaign as an opportunity to help spread information about the safeguards Malta has successfully negotiated on fundamental issues such as abortion, while reassuring voters of the commitment to fight in the European Parliament for these safeguards not to be touched.

The second option as a prod to get their vote, is to try to fool people into believing that what the government negotiated prior to Malta's accession on abortion no longer applies, while also trying to dismiss the government's role, and the importance of the Lisbon Treaty, in obtaining a sixth seat in the European Parliament for Malta.

Responsibility dictates that I go for the first option - without hesitation.