Former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici has criticised the EU Fiscal Pact and called on Maltese MPs not to support it during the ratification process in Parliament.

He told a press conference this morning that the Pact was an imposition by unelected EU officials on sovereign governments - to the extent that they even wanted it in national constitutions.

The Maltese parliament and the parliaments of other EU countries were being made slaves to unelected officials of the European Commission. Accepting this would set a precedent, he stressed.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici - who is chairman of the Campaign for National Independence - said that the Pact has four aims - economic growth, competitiveness, job-creation and social cohesion but it was doing the opposite because it was limiting government spending by enforcing balanced budgets whereas the previous acceptable deficit level was 3%.

The way the Treaty was written was vague and left room for problems of interpretation between the Commission and national government on what could be included or excluded in the formula of national budgets for calculation of deficits.

He said there were many practically reasons why this Pact would not work. The Pact, he said, demanded that the national debt could not exceed 60% of GDP. Economic growth was needed to reduce that debt, but growth could not come about without spending, which in turn widened the deficit.

The worst part was that the European Union was forcing countries to include this Pact as part of their constitution.

He said the political parties in Malta were backing the Pact because the prime minister had already signed up to it and, in Labour's case, either because of political convenience or political ignorance.

A referendum - as was being held in Ireland - would not be a bad idea if the people were sufficiently well informed of what was at stake, he said.

He noted that the leading contender in the French presidential election, as well as government officials in the UK, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic had expressed misgivings over the Treaty.