Malta has hosted many resident am-bassadors. Some view their stay as a break, enjoy the sunshine and leave as inconspicuously as they arrived. Others adopt a different approach altogether; they learn about the country's traditions and culture and contribute to its development by sparking debate.
The new US Ambassador, Douglas Kmiec, has already shown that he will belong to the latter category. He started the past week urging Malta to contribute to the US's campaign in Afghanistan by offering training to Afghans in agriculture and good governance, and he ended it by entering into a subject that has been a hot potato on our shores for a number of years: neutrality.
Prof. Kmiec said: "While I respect how Malta values its neutrality, the question I ask is: neutral to what? Is it neutrality to peace? Is it neutrality to assisting those striving for peace?"
Critics will argue it is only natural for a US ambassador to try and get Malta to play a bigger role in a week when America announced it was sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. There may be some truth in this. But that does mean his comments should not be used as an impetus to resolve our long-standing debate, particularly since they mirror remarks made by former President and Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami at the start of the decade, who said: "The Constitution states that Malta is a neutral state actively pursuing peace. (But) being neutral means sitting on the fence and not pursuing anything. This is a contradiction in terms."
There is as much significance in what Prof. Kmiec said as where he said it, since he was speaking at a seminar organised by the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies to mark the 20th anniversary of the Bush-Gorbachev summit - the historical meeting that put an end to the Cold War; which was the state of affairs used to justify the tenuous wording in our Constitution in the first place.
It is not just world affairs that have made certain provisions in this section of the Constitution obsolete, but our own as well. When the terms were drafted and accepted in 1986, the then opposition Nationalist Party's priority was to ensure there would be no repeat of the 1981 election debacle when it was deprived of power after gaining the majority of votes. In the political climate that prevailed at that time, when Malta's democratic credentials were being put to the most severe test, making this compromise was a small price to pay because it allowed Malta to step back from the brink.
However, the neutrality provisions have caused problems ever since, both in the context of our new reality which is the European Union as well as in economic terms. The issue should have been resolved when it reared its ugly head in 2001, after the General Workers' Union ordered dock workers not to honour a lucrative contract to carry out work on the US military vessel La Salle.
The union was forced by the government of the day to capitulate, but an intransigent Labour opposition ensured there was no change in the Constitutional position.
Joseph Muscat has a golden opportunity to put that right, by taking up the long-standing offer to debate this issue. Malta has in the past only discussed neutrality when there has been a crisis. This time let us use a historical anniversary to resolve the matter once and for all.