Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi accused the Opposition of “clutching at straws” yesterday at the end of a stormy meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee where both sides fumed, mostly over semantics.
Dr Gonzi elicited a thunderous reaction from Labour MP George Vella when he quoted a secret security agreement with North Korea signed in 1982 by the Labour government.
The Prime Minister took the witness stand at the committee’s second hearing on Labour’s motion censuring Malta’s EU Ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana for proposing ways to bypass Parliament on important foreign affairs issues.
The hearing was characterised by disorder and snide remarks from both sides, shedding very little new light on the case.
The Opposition presented a somewhat uncoordinated front, with Dr Vella at one point shushing Labour MP Luciano Busuttil for intervening.
In another instance, Labour MP Leo Brincat accused the government of wanting Mr Cachia Caruana to testify sixth and an incredulous Foreign Minister Tonio Borg reminded him an agreement between both sides had already been reached that Mr Cachia Caruana would testify second.
Dr Borg also corrected Dr Vella from referring to Malta’s EU Ambassador by his initials “RCC”.
Dr Gonzi began his address to the committee by reiterating that, even before Malta’s EU entry, the island was being prevented from accessing EU-Nato discussions and documents because it was no longer a member of PfP.
This problem, he said, was not a state secret but was amply discussed in local and international media.
Here, Dr Vella stressed that the media reports never mentioned the proposals which were being proposed.
Dr Gonzi continued by saying government officials were trying to find a solution to this predicament, including by proposing that one aspect of the PfP membership remained in force despite Malta’s withdrawal in 1996.
There was no need to go to Parliament, however, because all proposals were shot down.
At all stages the government refused to enter PfP to prevent controversy at a time when consensus was just being reached on EU membership.
Dr Vella asked the Prime Minister whether he felt he betrayed the public and Parliament when he argued that a PfP security agreement remained in force despite the fact that Labour withdrew in 1996, after achieving an electoral mandate to do so.
At this point a long and heated discussion ensued over whether Dr Vella had in 1996 withdrawn from PfP membership or just one programme, prompting a debate on the difference between a security agreement and a security of documents agreement.
A similarly semantic argument arose before where Dr Gonzi accused the Opposition of misreading part of the Wikileaks cable which states: “We [US diplomats] anticipate he [Cachia Caruana] will raise the Maltese proposal in that meeting, and seek any Washington guidance on this idea.”
Dr Gonzi said the comma in the second sentence showed that it was the US officials who would seek Washington guidance – a claim Dr Vella said was “insulting” to his intelligence.
Concluding, when Mr Brincat began asking questions about the list of witnesses proposed by the government for the committee’s hearings, Dr Gonzi accused the Opposition of clutching at straws: “Your whole argument has gone with the wind... The truth, simply and clearly, is that we had a problem and we tried to solve it in the interest of our country.”
The hearing continues today.