A Labour government will not withdraw Malta from Nato’s Partnership for Peace programme, according to a party spokesman, signalling a U-turn in policy.
This is the first public admission by the Labour Party that it will not reverse the government’s decision in 2008 to re-join the Partnership for Peace programme after a hiatus of 12 years.
In 1996 the newly-elected Labour government immediately withdrew Malta’s membership in the Nato programme, which the country had joined a year earlier under the previous Nationalist administration.
And after the 2008 election,the PL’s acting leader Charles Mangion had said the party did not agree with PfP membership because it “compromises Malta’s neutrality” and that joining was not on the party’s agenda.
Nato’s Partnership for Peace programme consists of practical bilateral cooperation between individual partner countries and the military alliance. It allows partner countries to build up an individual relationship with Nato, choosing their own priorities for cooperation.
Membership of PfP does not equate to Nato membership and does not mean military participation in the alliance’s missions.
The PL confirmation comes a day after a leaked US Embassy cable reported that in a meeting with former US Ambassador Douglas Kmiec in November 2009, Labour leader Joseph Muscat and foreign affairs spokesman George Vella had indicated that PfP membership “was not contrary to the neutrality clause of Malta’s Constitution” and the party would have been willing to work with government to rejoin.
In his cable, the Ambassador said opposition to Nato membership was a long-standing position, based on Labour’s interpretation of the neutrality clause in Malta’s constitution.
Asked to confirm whether the US cable reflected current policy, a Labour Party spokesman yesterday said the PfP programme had over the years developed differently than what was originally envisaged inthe 1990s when it was still in the initial stages.
“The Labour Party will not be withdrawing Malta from Nato’s PfP programme... time has shown that a neutral country like Malta, as long as it has total control of the participation programme, can take part in PfP,” he said.
However, the Labour Party still expressed reservations over the way Malta was admitted in the PfP programme in 2008 by the Gonzi administration.
“This is certainly not in line with the Ratification of Treaties Act,” the spokesman said.
This issue had also been raised in the 2009 meeting with Prof. Kmiec and the confidential cable published by whistleblower site Wikileaks, commented on what the US ambassador described as “unexpected and troublesome” remarks by Dr Vella.
During the meeting, Dr Vella had said the reactivation of PfP membership was “invalid as it failed to comply with Malta’s Treaties Act” because the government had not referred the matter to Parliament.
Widespread furore accompanied the government’s decision to apply for PfP membership just days after the 2008 election had returned a Nationalist administration.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com