Gonzi tells Muscat: Don’t dare ruin our reputation

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi yesterday warned Labour leader Joseph Muscat not to dare ruin Malta’s reputation abroad, as a week characterised by foreign affairs came to an end.

PN governments never held high profile talks with foreign leaders behind closed doors

Dr Muscat visited Libya this weekend, a day after a North Korean news agency revealed that its outgoing ambassador had held meetings with Dr Muscat as well as with President George Abela.

Meanwhile, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on Friday said he would not support Turkey’s EU membership. He spoke after Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said Malta backed the country’s accession.

Addressing party supporters yesterday, Dr Gonzi made no mention of Dr Pullicino Orlando’s objections but took Dr Muscat to task on Libya and North Korea.

Dr Gonzi said Nationalist governments never held high profile meetings with foreign leaders behind closed doors and always expressed the positions of the Maltese people clearly during meetings with officials of foreign countries.

He said this was the case when the government last year condemned the Gaddafi regime early on in the conflict.

“But Labour never learns.”

During the same party activity, Dr Borg said Nationalist governments had striven to develop good relationships with all countries but unlike the Labour Party it never decorated former North Korean dictator Kim il-Sung or invited Muammar Gaddafi to address a mass meeting, although he failed to mention the National Order of Merit given to Col Gaddafi in 2004 by a Nationalist government.

However, he added: “Our relationships were on a government not party level” – a dig at the personal relationships struck between Labour leaders and these pariahs in the past.

Dr Borg also said that while the Opposition last year called on Malta to stay neutral in the Libya conflict, the government went to Libya when the rebels were still fighting to declare the regime’s end inevitable and give its support to the transitional council.

Malta did not rub its fingers with glee when North African countries erupted in conflict, he said, referring to when Dr Muscat had said Malta should take the opportunity to boost its tourism advertising.

“This damages Malta, not only Joseph Muscat,” he said.

Dr Gonzi also spoke about the government’s achievements, reiterating that his government had created 20,000 jobs in the past few years. These did not come about coincidentally, he said, but thanks to the government’s wise decisions.

While there were many ways of measuring a country’s success, Dr Gonzi said job creation was the most important. Dr Gonzi also spoke about the launch of a new website by the PN (www.mychoice.pn), which asks people to get in touch with the party and submit their ideas and suggestions.

The Prime Minister said it was thanks to Nationalist governments that young people were so comfortable with technology today because decades ago, Labour exponents like Karmenu Vella and Dom Mintoff stopped the Maltese from importing computers for fear that they would replace jobs.

Dr Gonzi said he was recently asked what the PN’s next frontier in politics would be after first fighting for liberty (in the 1980s) and then working for Malta to become an EU member.

Dr Gonzi replied by saying that both those achievements could not be taken for granted because the people still sitting on Opposition benches had stifled liberty and made “1,000 million mistakes” when they claimed Malta would only get upwards of €1 million from EU membership. (Malta has in fact brought in €1 billion, he said).

The next step, however, was for the Maltese to reap the benefits of the EU. It was not enough that no one was left behind. Now, everyone had to progress, he said.