Maltese neutrality: A lame duck

I have read with interest the various contributions on the subject of Maltese neutrality and thought that I should join these contributors by airing my views on the subject. In fact, I have always considered Malta's neutrality to be a lame duck for it is a neutrality, which, as a matter of fact, binds only two countries - Malta and Italy - in a world of 192 member states of the United Nations. Indeed, Italy can, at its own pleasure and without the need to obtain Malta's consent, untie itself of this Gordian knot as the Malta-Italy neutrality agreement permits Italy to denounce the treaty whenever it deems it fit and proper to do so in its national interests.

This is hardly a durable treaty, which places a Maltese citizen's mind at rest that our neutrality is guaranteed by the international community, come what may. It must be borne in mind that of all the countries in the world it is only Italy that sought to recognise and guarantee, through a treaty, Malta's neutrality. However, worse still, this recognition remains a very flimsy one, a rabta ċoff, as we say in Maltese.

I do not like being taken for a ride by those who argue in favour of Malta's neutrality giving the impression that this status is in Malta's best interest when I know that there is only one country, at least up to now, that is guaranteeing our security and safety from external aggression. Nor can I exclude the possibility that a situation might arise sometime in the future where Malta might require Italy's assistance and, instead of granting such assistance, Italy opts to denounce the Malta-Italy neutrality treaty as it has all the right and power to do so under international law. Hence, I think it is safer from a national security point of view to be aligned with Nato or any other military alliance the reader might choose for that matter rather than being neutral once I know that the neutrality negotiated by Malta in the past does not provide any adequate guarantees for its own security. If this is the neutrality that Malta has bound itself to, then, no thanks, that is not what I think is in the best interest for Malta's security.

Italy - contrary to Malta - is a member of Nato and might end up one day having conflicting interests to balance between being a Nato member and guaranteeing Malta's neutrality.

Should such conflict of interest arise, I see it very difficult for Italy to side with Malta, notwithstanding our excellent good neighbourly relations, and turn its back on all its 27 Nato allies. This apart from the fact that circumstances might bring about a conflicting situation between the two treaties (the Nato treaty and the Italy-Malta neutrality treaty) insofar as Italy is concerned.

On September 12, 1993 I had the opportunity to delve upon the subject of Malta's Fragile Neutralised Status. At that time, The Malta Independent had published a special booklet entitled Avis: The Key To Europe and I was asked to contribute on the compatibility of Malta's neutrality with European Union membership. Although I did conclude in that piece that there was no incompatibility between the two, I still stressed the uniqueness of our neutrality from an international law point of view: our neutrality is secured by only one foreign state in a very flimsy manner, thereby making it very volatile and entirely dependent on only one single and unique actor in the international community of states: Italy.

Moreover, Italy is not one of the great powers of our times and, further, our neutrality is not even guaranteed by at least one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States of America, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom - as well as by Nato or some other emergent power in the world, such as India.

The international community did not accept to act as guarantor of Malta's neutrality and our politicians at the time should have had the political acumen not to bark up the wrong tree and change Malta's course, which has taken us in the direction of a dead alley. Unfortunately, the same political leaders and their followers did not learn the lesson of history based on their own past mistakes. We had a repetition of this unilateral assumption of neutral status mistake with regard to Malta's partnership proposal, which would have led us totally astray from EU membership thereby negating to the Maltese people the myriad benefits of EU accession.

Now that both main political parties agree that Malta's future lies within the EU, Malta should seriously consider its foreign policy options in the light of the fact that our neutrality is a lame duck, more of an impediment to our national security than an asset. Neutrality might have made sense when Malta was not an EU member. But, today, we need to move on with time and recognise that the international scenario has changed and is still changing and that a policy of neutrality might not necessarily be in the best interests of Malta.

The time has come to revisit Malta's neutrality. Our security interests cannot be safeguarded by such a flimsy and volatile arrangement.

Malta cannot afford to remain unprotected due to its small size and finite resources, including military preparedness and capacity.

Malta should be at the forefront to propose proactively a new EU security arrangement that addresses our defence preoccupations in a concrete way while ensuring that we are protected not only from irregular immigration but even insofar as our national security, territorial integrity, unity and independence of the archipelago are concerned.

We should use the past as a mirror for the future, not by repeating past mistakes but by learning therefrom.

I leave it up to our politicians - mainly through the Select Committee of the House of Representatives, which will soon be discussing a review of our Constitution - to reflect what should replace the neutrality and non-alignment provisions in the Constitution of Malta with some other policy more relevant in our time and age bearing in mind Malta's membership of various international and regional organisations foremost among which the EU and the UN.

The new policy, contrary to the current one, should not tie unilaterally only our hands in the international area but should, on the contrary, bind the international community vis-à-vis Malta through a legally binding and durable agreement that should be very difficult, if at all, to denounce under international law by the international community of states.

Prof. Aquilina is head, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Laws, the University of Malta.