Crossroads

The Sunday Times, February 23, 2003 5

INTERVIEW

All or nothing
Labour foreign affairs spokesman George Vella insists that an absolute majority of eligible voters has to vote Yes to make the referendum result valid. Talking to HERMAN GRECH, Dr Vella also maintains that the Labour Party has a policy on which it will get elected.
You might disagree with his mathematics, but Labour foreign affairs spokesman George Vella has already done his sums. Unless the absolute majority of all eli gible voters in the EU referendum opt for membership , then he will consider the electorate to be against. Personally thats how I see it. If one wants to prove to me that the majority of people are in favour of EU membership, I would expect to see 50 per cent plus one of all eligible voters voting Yes with the exclusion of that very small percent age who never vote. Dr Vella also says he believes some companies and organisations are being bullied to declare themselves in favour of membership. Dr Vella might come across as an impatient man who easily loses his tem per. But behind the stern faade, the 61year old family doctor is a seasoned politician who has carved out his niche as one of the MLPs best assets. During his stint as foreign minister during the Labour government between 1996 and 1998, Dr Vella had tried to mould a foreign policy for Malta , shortly after freezing Maltas EU application. But five years after his government was voted out of power, Dr Vella is back trying once again to promote an alterna tive policy, short of EU membership. Call it the free trade area, Switzer land in the Mediterranean , or partnership . It s one and the same thing , he says. Despite being told by some top European Commission officials that the MLPs foreign policy was not attainable, Dr Vella is determined to soldier on. We are fashioning out a tailor -made agreement suited to our circumstances. And we will get it, he says. Dr Vella , however , denies that the three different foreign policy mottoes drawn up by the MLP in the last seven years or so are confusing the electorate. The MLP deputy leader says that peo ple are gradually realising what the part nership option means. I agree with you that there are still many people who have to get to know what our policy means . The trouble is there is this big democratic deficit and imbalance in the way the transmission of messages is taking place. Yet, Dr Vella says, the more people ask about partnership, the more they realise its benefits. On the other hand , people are aware only of those issues that Government decided to speak about, such as transition periods and derogations . They are not aware of all the other issues and conditions which Government has had to accept in a clean sweep. With two weeks to go to the referen dum , is it too late for the MLP to inform the electorate about its partnership strategy? We are trying our utmost to reach as many people as possible. We are having meetings and receiving phone calls up till late at night . Obviously , had it been a longer period we would have been in a better position to convince people. Dr Vella says the partnership option is inspired by what Switzerland had obtained in its negotiations with the EU, introduce measures in small doses. There is nothing positive about the fact that Government has postponed the intro duction of VAT on food and pharmaceuti cals until 2010 at least, he says. Government has also promised that should VAT be introduced in 20 1 0 , it would be prepared to provide cost of liv ing compensation. But Dr Vella says that any subsidies to make up for this would have to come out of taxpayers money. Likewise, the subsidies given to farmers and the agriculture sector would have to be forked out from peoples pockets. How much money will Malta receive from the partnership option? For starters , we re not going to be paying anything. Secondly, we would not be obliged to go to all that expense to meet requirements. Thirdly, what price is there for sovereignty, freedom and inde pendence? Dr Vella does not believe the MLPs anti-membership stand has alienated sev eral of the partys supporters. With the same argument , many staunch PN supporters are denouncing the EU. In spite of what people say about the Labour Party, we are not a Stalinist or a Communist organisation . We practise freedom of speech, but obviously there is a party policy which people ultimately have to follow. Dr Vella is confident that the majority of eligible voters will not vote for EU membership. He finally sheds some light on the MLPs rather bizarre motion, which urges the electorate to either vote no, invalidate their votes, or abstain from voting. Anybody who doesnt care about the EU is not in favour, Dr Vella says. When I point out that this did not nec essarily mean that they were against EU membership , Dr Vella says he cannot accept that people who are in favour would stay at home for such a crucial issue. Dont try to sell me that. Then, he says, there are four to five per cent who never go out to vote. According to me , we can eliminate those, but beyond that , I say that those who abstained from voting , who have spoilt their vote, or not bothered to go out to vote, are not in favour. But surely any citizen who abstains from voting is entitled to have an opinion on the EU? It s Government which has to prove that point, not us. Government is calling the referendum, is Dr Vellas curt reply. Still, he says, the MLP will discuss the interpretation of the result at the proper time. And what is the scenario if the MLP is voted back in government in the coming months? Will it immediately freeze the EU application? The fact that you journalists raise this question convinces me even more that the likely scenario is that theres going to be a Labour victory. The point about freezing or not freez ing the application in my opinion is irrelevant . The MLP has an electoral pro gramme on which it will get elected and thats the programme which we will dis cuss with the EU.

without becoming a member. When in government , the MLP had already specified what it wanted to achieve with the EU . Among other aspects, he says, the MLP had always earmarked agriculture for special considera tion. Two months after agreeing upon the framework there was a technical delegation in Malta to start discussing the details and implementation of the plan, he says. He is unimpressed by comments by European Commission President Romano Prodi, who recently said that the partner ship the EU can offer to Malta would be no different to the one offered to countries like the Ukraine and Morocco. The EU has a different partnership or relationship with each country. When people say we will be like Morocco and Tunisia, this is being done simply to try and degrade the idea since we re being compared to a North African country. Frankly, if you tell me that this is a similar agreement to the one Morocco or Israel has, I dont care. We are fashioning out a tailor-made agreement according to our circumstances. So what if its similar to the one in Morocco? Whats the problem? Dr Vella insists that the MLP is not pursuing a European Economic Area agreement , and it would therefore not have the same obligations as Iceland or Norway.

The Labour deputy leader is unaffected by the number of constituted bodies and organisations which have expressed themselves in favour of EU membership. Some of them are simply trying to toe the government line. And I will go as far as to say that some of them are doing it under pressure. When we were in govern ment they were also close to us, but we never bullied anyone as is happening now with some. Dr Vella is equally dismissive of the opinion polls which have recently shown increasing support for membership. We are a very small island and there are certain allegiances and obligations. For example , we ve been meeting the council of a particular organisation who told us in private that they are against EU membership because it would ruin their business, and then in public they say dif ferent things . I know what I m talking about. One of them even went as far as to say in public that he didnt know what partnership was. He must be either dumb or stupid, because we spent ages with this person trying to explain what it is. Referring to the negotiated package, Dr Vella described the 77 special arrange ments obtained by Government as 77 bitter pills we have to swallow. Government, he says, did nothing more than ask for a graded approach in order to