In the serene surroundings of San Anton Gardens, two former Presidents, Eddie Fenech Adami and Guido de Marco, reminisced on the anecdotes and events that characterised Malta's 14-year wait to join the EU.
The decision to hold an election soon after the 2003 EU referendum was based on "a political calculation" that people who voted yes would not change their mind, according to Dr Fenech Adami.
Even while people speculated when the referendum would be held and subsequently whether to hold a general election soon after, Nationalist Party strategists had everything planned to the letter.
Speaking at San Anton Gardens during a public dialogue organised by the PN's educational academy, Ażad, to mark 20 years since Malta formally applied to join the EU in 1990, Dr Fenech Adami said the referendum and general election dates were conditioned by the Athens EU accession treaty signing.
Irrespective of the interpretation the Labour Party would have given the referendum result and whether it would have changed its mind on membership, Dr Fenech Adami added, the government had always planned to call the general election two days after the referendum result was known.
"Romano Prodi, who was then EU Commission president, had asked me over the phone whether I was mad to call a general election given that the referendum gave a positive result. But this is where the political calculation was made. We knew that people who voted yes were less likely to contradict their vote a couple of weeks later," Dr Fenech Adami told a bemused audience mostly made up of PN functionaries and supporters.
The crucial date was April 16 when heads of government had to sign the EU accession treaty in Athens. To give the new Prime Minister enough leeway to be present in the Greek capital, the general election had to be held on April 12 after a five-week electoral campaign that would kick off just two days after the referendum on March 8.
These details are not a revelation for those who assiduously followed political developments at the time but, coming directly from the mouth of a prime protagonist, they show how astute politicians leave nothing to chance. They also show how, more often than not, crucial decisions are taken in the party backroom away from the media glare.
The San Anton setting was relaxed, with a peacock even strolling along the pathways that led to the open piazza beneath the palace walls where two decades of history were being traversed by two political elders.
Immortalised by the image of Prof de Marco, then Foreign Minister, handing over Malta's formal EU application to his Italian counterpart Gianni de Michelis, July 16, 1990 was the start of a 14-year journey that saw Malta join the bloc in 2004.
Reminiscing on those days 20 years ago, Prof. de Marco said Malta had no EU member state acting as a godfather for it but it could rely on the unstinting support of the Italians and that was why the government had waited for Italy to take over the EU presidency before submitting the application.
There was a pause when Prof. de Marco was asked by PBS journalist Reno Bugeja, who chaired the event, whether he was taken aback in not being the Foreign Minister to take Malta into the EU after years of hard work.
Prof. de Marco was appointed President in 1999, soon after the PN was returned to government in 1998 with the difficult task of having to put back on track Malta's EU application after the previous Labour Administration froze it two years earlier.
"I accepted the Presidency when I was sure that Malta's application was back on track. I had concluded the political negotiations," Prof. de Marco said, pointing out that he was present in Athens for the formal signing in 2003 as head of state.
For Prof. de Marco it was almost amusing that EU educational funds suspended because of mismanagement were a matter of controversy today. This was possible, he added, because the PN realised its long-held vision of Malta being part of the EU with the same rights and obligations as other big countries.
And as the recollections flowed, including the revelation that Christian democrat and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had blocked Malta's EU accession in 1995 and how the UK was not an enthusiastic supporter of Malta, some ducks at San Anton jumped out of their pond and rested on the passageways.
The two men talked with pride even though the anniversary has faded to an almost irrelevant blip on a journey that is now a foregone conclusion as Malta wins and loses arguments on the EU's decision table.