A UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Libya should hopefully issue a strong signal to Libya's rival governments that their time to reach agreement was short, and if no agreement was reached, decisions woudl have to be taken by the UN itself, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told Parliament this evening.
Explaining the current situation, he said Libya was now split in three. The east was under the recognised government based in Tobruk. The West was headed by a governemnt which was not internationally recognised, based in Tripoli.
More recently the port city of Derna and the town of Sirte fell under extremist groups. This development confirmed that extremist groups existed in Libya and they were actually stronger than some had thought, although one still had to see how much of their composition was actually made up of foreigners.
The real danger was that this new force would not stop with what had been achieved but would get bigger and absorb bigger parts of Libya.
Dr Muscat said he would not at this stage discuss whether these extremists were Isis, or trying to imitate Isis, but the methods were the same.
Many reports of brutality had been heard over the past months even if initially the media had not been giving it attention. But all that changed with the decapitation of 21 Coptic Christians.
He wanted to make it clear, Dr Muscat said, that the governemnt and the Security Service had no information of Malta being targeted for attacks from Libya or any other country.
There was nothing to indicate that there was a danger to Malta.
But one had to see all this against the background of the situation in the Mediterranean and Europe including lone attacks which could not be predicted. Therefore, every country needed to be vigilant.
This, Dr Muscat said, was not a war of religions and it was wrong to fall into the trap of those who were trying to make it such. One had seen how a Jordanian Muslim solider was killed, or when a Muslim policemen was killed in cold blood in Paris.
Malta's role, Dr Muscat said, was to be a voice of common sense and moderation in the Mediterranean.
Th situation had degenerated in Libya and there was need for UN intervention. Ideally it should be a national unity government tin Libya which would seek UN help to establish order.
The need for intervention, ideally at the request of Libya itself, had been raised repeatedly by Malta in the UN, the EU, the UNHCR and various European countries.
The current power vacuum in Libya was creating space for extremism and security problems for the region. The maxim that there could be no peace in Europe without peace in the Mediterranean still applied. Indeed, it applied for the whole world.
Tomorrow the UN Security Council would meet and Malta hoped it would issue a strong signal to the people of Libya that they only had a short time to reach agreement leading to them calling for help from the UN. If that call was not made by agreement, the UN may need to act on its own initiative.
It was clear that there was need for UN intervention. The issue was how and the Libyan people's involvement in the decision.
Malta, Dr Muscat said, could be a point of contact with the Libyan people in this delicate moment.
The repercussions of doing nothing were huge as the problem would spread to North Africa with repercussions also on Malta and Europe.
If the UN did agree to send a peacekeeping mission to Libya, Malta would give its logistical and humanitarian help.
Malta could not wash its hands of the situation, more so because of the issue of migration.
Over the past month there was a sharp increase in migrant crossings, with criminals forcing people onto boats, whatever the weather. The situation would grow worse if the situation in Libya was allowed to get worse.
Concluding, Dr Muscat said that if Europe wanted to be taken seriously about terrorism it could not ignore the siltation in Libya.
The Opposition, he said, was being kept informed on the situation.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said the situation in Libya was of extreme concern, more so following the brutal murder of the Egyptian coptics.
He welcomed the prime minister's declaration that the governemnt had no information of a threat to security in Malta.
The Opposition backed any action by the government and other countries to stabilise the situation in Libya so that it would not become of victim of extremist forces.
The government should join the global coalition against Isis. Malta could not be against Isis while keeping out of the coalition against it - the only EU country to do so.
The Opposition backed a UN peacekeeping force in Libya to stop the growing threat of terrorism. Ideally, this initiative should be backed by the rival sides in Libya but the important thing was that this peacekeeping force was raised.
If the UN did mandate such a peacekeeping force, the Opposition agreed that Malta could not have a military role. Malta therefore should offer humanitarian assistance in the same way as it had acted when the Libya uprising started four years ago.
In the EU, the governemnt should show leadership and lead the EU to a common position on what needed to be done in Libya. Malta and Italy should not be alone in calling for a peacekeeping force in Libya but that should be a common European position.
The EU could then put pressure in the UN for that force to be set up.
Dr Busuttil said the Opposition wanted a common front with the government on Libya, but it could not but condemn a tweet by the prime minister's personal assistant comparing Islam to Nazism. This was unacceptable and did not represent the common sense and moderation which Dr Muscat rightly spoke about.
In replying, Dr Muscat again stressed that there was no indication that Malta was being targeted for any attack.
Malta, he said, should be vigilant, but people should not be alarmist. The government was seeking a balance in raising security as part of the need to be vigilant, without being alarmist.
The reality was, however, that one could hardly do anything about lone wolf attacks as witnessed recently in Europe.
People should go about with their ordinary life. Not doing so would hand victory to the terrorists.
Regarding the coalition against Isis, Dr Muscat said the European side had issued a statement listing the countries, including Malta, as having joined the coalition.
Some rightly protested that such a decision was taken without consultation. It then resulted that the EU bureaucracy drew up the list on its own.
However Malta was insisting that it set its own foreign policy,although this did not mean there were no grounds for discussion.
The issue was not whether one was in favour or against the coalition but when Malta would join, and how.
The government had made it clear that it did not want anyone to take Malta’s foreign policy for granted. The decision would be taken by Malta when it deemed it.
In his statement and in reply to questions from the Opposition, Dr Muscat also spoke on the EU’s talks with Greece.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said it was irresponsible for the Greek governemnt to make promises which could only be funded with the funds of other European taxpayers. He insisted that the Maltese government should be firm in insisting that the funds Malta had loaned Greece had to be paid back.
Dr Muscat said the bottom line was that loans had to be repaid. That was something on which there could be no discussion.
However there could be discussion on the conditions leading to that bottom line.
It would not benefit anyone if Greece left the eurozone and defaulted, more so for Malta, whose loans to Greece as a proportion of GDP were among the highest in the eurozone
On possible changes of conditions, Dr Muscat said that if, for example, the Greek government wanted to raise pensions, it could do so, as long as it sourced the funds it needed, such as by cuts elsewhere.
The problem was that the Greek governemnt had not yet come up with a programme on how it would fund the changes it wanted to make, while ensuring it had the money to pay back its loans.
Another area where there could be some flexibility was in the condition that from next year Greece had to have a primary surplus of 4.5%. The Eurozone was saying this could be reduced to 4% and Greece was saying it should be 2.5%.
One could also possibly discuss a postponement of interest payments, as long as the capital was paid.