(Updated with PN reaction)
Malta will not be represented at an emergency EU Health Ministers' meeting on the swine flu tomorrow because no agreement on parliamentary pairing had been reached with the Opposition, Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea said today.
The only Maltese representative will be the Director-General for Public Health Ray Busuttil, but Mr Galea said this was a political meeting for health ministers.
Mr Galea said that Parliament is tomorrow due to vote on amendments to the General Elections Act. He had been due to attend the EU meeting but would now have to stay in Malta.
The parliamentary House Business Committee met yesterday and the Opposition suggested moving the vote to Friday or Saturday, but the government disagreed because of other engagements for a number of MPs.
The opposition then decided it would not allow pairing, Mr Galea said.
"We had felt that an important meeting such as this should not have been the cause of an issue involving pairing and pique," Mr Galea said. This situation was surprising, he said, because the Opposition representative on the Pandemic Committee, which met on Monday, had given a useful contribution.
Mr Galea pointed out that the government had agreed not to hold a parliamentary sitting on March 30, when the PL had wanted to hold its Freedom Day mass meeting.
Turning to the swine flu situation, Mr Galea said this was not a pandemic yet, although the world was on alert for one. The good news was that patients seemed to be responding well to anti-viral drugs.
He said that no suspected cases had been reported in Malta, and a helpline for people who could have been to Mexico had received any calls. No extraordinary measures were being taken at this stage, but officials were continuing to update the National Pandemic Plan, just in case.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that should an emergency develop, social cases at Mater Dei Hospital would be transferred to 144 beds in a new wing at St Vincent de Paule Home, freeing space in the general hospital.
Meanwhile, the Maltese Foreign Ministry this afternoon issued a travel advisory saying non-essential travel to Mexico was being discouraged.
LABOUR ACCUSES GOVERNMENT OF DISTORTING THE TRUTH
The Labour Party in a reaction said that its MPs had offered a solution about the parliamentary vote, and the government was distorting the truth.
The PL said that when it was informed of Thursday’s EU meeting, its whip suggested moving the parliamentary sitting and the vote to today, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, leaving the choice to the government. But instead of showing good will and flexibility the governemnt opted to create an issue in an effort to paint the Opposition in a bad light during the EP electoral campaign.
The party also pointed out that some weeks ago, the government moved a procedural motion to regulate parliamentary sittings after complaining that it was not being granted pairing. Yet it had still sought pairing once more.
Furthermore, the government moved the Electoral Law amendments without prior consultation with the Opposition and without being able to guarantee the accuracy of the electoral register. In such circumstances, the PL could not be an accomplice with the government.
The PL insisted, however, that its commitment to a national strategy on swine flu was not in question and its representative was taking an active role in the meetings of the national pandemic committee.
PN REACTION
The Nationalist Party parliamentary group in a statement said the Opposition, in refusing pairing for tomorrow’s sitting, had put partisan interests before the national interest.
The party said it was disappointed by the Opposition attitude in such an important matter as then involving an EU ministerial meeting on swine flu. It would have expected the Opposition to actually take the initiative to offer pairing, rather than refuse it.
The opposition, it said, was not acting as an Opposition would in an EU country.