The debate on having one national day should not take place during political events, the government said yesterday, accusing Opposition leader Simon Busuttil of making divisive comments.

The discussion should rather be at the centre of a Constitutional Con-vention as promised by the Prime Minister.

It said it was disappointed that Dr Busuttil had declared – during a Nationalist Party event on Sunday – that Independence Day should be Malta’s only national day.

This showed he had not understood the spirit of unity that the government was trying to instil, it said,

It also accused him of sowing division.

Malta currently has five national holidays and partisan controversy surrounds three of them: Independence Day, Republic Day and Freedom Day.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said he would like to see them re-duced to two.

Time has come to move from words to action

On Sunday night, Dr Busuttil proposed that Independence Day should be declared Malta’s only national holiday.

This would show that calls for unity heard over the past few days were not just a slogan but could be put into practice.

He said unity must be built on truth, and the truth was that Independence had started Malta on the road it had taken as a nation state, although this did not mean that what came afterwards was not important.

Yesterday, the Nationalist Party reacted to the government’s statement, noting the Prime Minister’s immediate attack on the national day proposal despite his previous calls for unity.

The party believed it was time to have one national day, as other countries did, and this should be Independence Day since it had provided the key to the country’s future.

The Prime Minister had forgotten his own comments about how important Independence Day was and that had called a stop to the “nonsense” of those who were against Independence, the party said.

“The time has come for the Prime Minister to show that he believes what he says and to translate words into action.”