News • 29 June 2003

Frendo’s Europe

Michael Frendo is one of Malta’s representatives in the Convention for the Future of Europe. Here he talks to MATTHEW VELLA on being part of the creative force behind the new European Union that is taking shape, and how his political career, after a slight debacle in the past years, is now looking better

Michael Frendo’s political vicissitudes could have been fatal. He received a blow in the 1998 elections, when he was not returned to Parliament. He made it through with a late by-election when Guido de Marco’s seat was vacated upon appointment as President of the Republic.

Sometime after 2000, Frendo told a MaltaToday reporter he would not contest another by-election for a parliamentary seat. Politicians say things and change their minds. Today Frendo is once again in Parliament, his seat secured only through a tenth district by-election. But his vote count has been notched up, he notes. Things are looking better.

"In 1998 the Labour Party was still at me on certain situations, and that affected me in the election. Surprisingly in my view, since the MLP itself had admitted that attacks on me had been of a political nature, and that they had closed the issue with me, and that they then re-opened it for the purposes of the election. Somehow, the electorate in my constituency did not grasp that. So I think I suffered quite badly because of that."

At least, this election was a clean one for him, Frendo says, asked whether internal party feuding had slowed down his climb to the top. He says he put up a strong campaign in a district full of PN heavyweights, ministers and local councillors.

Once chairman of the PN’s Independence Newspapers and head of the UK PN office, also one of the youngest cabinet members between 1990 and 1996, Frendo today may no longer have a portfolio, but his luck is changing.

Today he chairs the Foreign Affairs parliamentary committee and is also one of Malta’s parliamentary and European Peoples’ Parties representatives in the Convention on the Future of Europe.

"One of my strongest contributions in the Convention was the concept of solidarity. I made it very clear that the concept of solidarity, which has characterised the EU since its inception, should be further emphasised in the Constitution. This has been done. Valery Giscard d’Estaing also took up the issue, and declared it should be one of the motto words that should be included in the Constitution.

"Another important aspect of the Constitution in which I was a part of, was the clear delineation of the competencies of the Union and which are the shared competencies of the Union and its Member States. Another important principle that I spoke very strongly in favour for, which is that of subsidiarity, has been included, so that whatever competence does not belong to the Union, belongs to the Member States. So the Union must be competent in those areas which the Member States have passed on to it.

"It was important to write this down in the Union’s law, for the Union to know where its competencies lie, and which are those competencies that have been passed on to it. This is a Union of states as well of peoples. It is in our interests to have this remain so."

One point which unfortunately did not find its way in the Constitution was the cohesion clause, which Frendo is still pledging to fight for during the current finalisation of the third part of the Constitution.

"Countries adopting the acquis communautaire undergo severe hardship. There should be a situation where the Council of Ministers may assist that country directly and specifically to overcome hardship and not fall behind in alignment.

"I think it is all the more important because the Constitution has now increased the use of qualified majority voting, and secondly because the Constitution has made it a bit easier for enhanced co-operation between small states who choose to work together.

"So the cohesion clause tries to counterbalance these two facts and make it easier for all the countries to keep on moving together and to remove, as much as possible, the situation where one particular country or a group of countries are very disgruntled because they would have voted against something which is very basic and hits their vital interests very closely."

An obvious choice for representation in the Convention, Frendo has been well-versed in European affairs since his employment as Eurolex manager for Thomson International in London. A lawyer and lecturer at the University of Malta, Frendo has authored several books on Malta’s relations with Europe’s institutions, his latest being ‘Europe – The case for Membership’.

So he looks at the whole divided affair of the EU Constitution, according to sceptic The Economist a paper fit to be thrashed, with a curious but informed view. Qualified majority voting, now defined as a simple majority of members with 60 per cent of the EU population, has redressed the imbalance caused by Nice’s atrocious vote-weights, where countries half the population of England and Germany were allotted 27 votes alongside the former’s 29 votes in the Council of Ministers.

Division being one of the more creative of sides within the EU, Frendo says Malta is nowhere next to being destabilised by the new definition that many say, will give the larger states more power.

"On a state level we are equal to France and Germany. When you look at the weighted voting, practically we are still in the same level as we had negotiated before. But the divisions within the EU have been mainly fears rather than reality. The divisions in the EU have historically been between the larger states and not between large and small states.

"However, this is really a big-bang enlargement, with the Union doubling in size. I think there is a greater fear of the larger states from the small states than there is of the small states from the larger states. Some of this fear of the larger states losing control to the smaller states is pushing for certain changes, for example the Presidency of the European Council. I am certain this is what informs this move.

"So qualified majority voting (QMV) is not a question of large or small, but of what type of Union we want to be involved in. Do we want to be part of a Union that functions? This is what QMV tries to achieve. On the other hand I am very much in favour of issues remaining areas of unanimous voting, such as defence and foreign policy."

Whilst QMV will mean Malta will have to find more allies within the constant shifting alliances within the EU, Frendo believes Malta can find close affinity with several other EU border-countries – Ireland, where he believes exists a certain affinity in culture, aptitude "and attitude towards life;" the smaller states from the Mediterranean such as Portugal, Cyprus and Slovenia; and our historical partners England and Italy.

What seems to be a greater area of contention for the Maltese government is that it is now trying to secure the five European Parliamentary seats negotiated in the run-up to accession. The new EU Constitution sets the minimum threshold at four, and the fight is on to keep Nice’s arrangements intact, at least for Malta’s parliamentary representation in the EU.

"Alfred Sant and Peter Serracino Inglott were the other two Maltese representatives to the Convention and in our various fora we all spoke about the issue of having six seats as a minimum. I also took this issue up at various times in the European Peoples’ Party and I am sure this was also done in other fora by the other representatives.

"But realistically, the first version of the draft Constitution spoke about 700 as a ceiling and four as a minimum. What we argue about is the level at which it has been set. Four is too low, unrealistic and means that you are not effectively participating in a meaningful way in the European Parliament. Five or six are a major improvement.

"This doesn’t mean we are going to lose our fifth seat, because any change from the current situation has to be passed by unanimity, and I would find it very hard for anybody not to use their veto if their seats are being reduced. I still think we should be aiming at six, especially now that the ceiling has been increased to accommodate the Nice arrangements."

With his political career now looking towards new aspirations, Frendo says he has not yet made his mind up on whether he will be contesting the European Parliament elections. He says he has already been asked to consider the job, but that it is still too early, although he is not excluding anything.