Photo: Jason Borg

No country has ever vetoed EU legislation to make a point on an unrelated issue, Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil said yesterday, as he warned Malta risked being marginalised by the Prime Minister’s rhetoric on immigration.

In recent days, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has repeatedly threatened to use all means at his disposal to persuade the EU to offer more support on irregular migration, including vetoing European legislation unrelated to immigration.

“On immigration Joseph Muscat has given up without even attempting reasonable and civilised tactics. He immediately threatened a veto, which should be the last resort,” Dr Busuttil told The Sunday Times of Malta.

A lawyer specialised in the EU, Dr Busuttil claimed there had never been an incidence of a country threatening to veto legislation unrelated to its concerns since he began following European affairs in 1994.

Since Thatcher the UK has paid a very high for its perceived confrontational attitude towards Europe

Dr Muscat argued in Parliament last week that Britain was still benefiting from a rebate thanks to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s threat to use the veto.

Asked about this yesterday, Dr Busuttil said: “Since Thatcher, the UK has paid a very high for its perceived confrontational attitude towards Europe.

“The UK is a country of 60 million and yet it has been marginalised to an extent. Imagine what would happen to the smallest EU country if we adopted a similar attitude.”

Although the Prime Minister has talked tough at home, Dr Busuttil pointed out, the Government has not backed up this rhetoric in Europe.

Malta chose to abstain when voting on the common asylum policy last month that did not include a provision for mandatory burden sharing.

The policy depended on qualified majority voting so a vote against would not have meant a veto.

The Leader of the Opposition added that in the nine years he was an MEP, no Labour MEPs joined the EU Parliament’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which he led. This covered issues including immigration and asylum.

“In Malta they play the cowboys on immigration but in Brussels they are completely absent from the debate.”

In what areas can Malta wield its EU veto?

For any EU law to be passed or for deals on the EU budget to be agreed, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament must vote in favour.

The number of areas where unanimity is required in Council of Ministers, made up of the relevant ministers from member states, was reduced by the Treaty of Lisbon.

The Lisbon Treaty significantly extended the scope of qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers.

Areas still subject to subject to unanimity and where Malta could theoretically use its veto in the Council of Ministers are:

• Taxation;

• Social security or social protection;

• The accession of new member states;

• Foreign and common defence policy;

• Operational police cooperation between member states;

• EU Budget.

How common is use of veto?

Members states do threaten to use their vetoes on related issues from time to time, but using them is rare.

Last month, France threatened to veto the EU’s free-trade pact with the US if films and digital media were not excluded. The veto was avoided at the last moment after the EU decided the sector would be kept out of any eventual agreement.

Malta threatened to veto the EU Immigration and Asylum Pact in 2008 if a reference to burden sharing was not made. Malta signed the pact when a reference to “voluntary” burden sharing was included as a compromise.

The benefits of actually using a veto are debateable.

British Prime Minister David Cameron notoriously wielded his veto in December 2011 when he felt a treaty intended to save the eurozone did not protect the UK’s financial sector. An inter-governmental “fiscal compact treaty” was eventually signed by all EU countries except the UK and the Czech Republic.

In 1994 then UK Prime Minister John Major vetoed the appointment of Belgian Jean-Luc Dehaene as President of the European Commission for being excessively federalist. He had to accept a Luxembourg politician of similar views, Jacques Santer, instead.