Updated | PN denies Sant’s claims that Gaddafi funded EU referendum campaign

Updated 3:51pm

The Nationalist Party has categorically denied claims by former Prime Minister Alfred Sant that the Gaddafi regime had financed the EU membership campaign or any other electoral campaign.

Alfred Sant has claimed funds from the Gaddafi regime had been invested in the European Union referendum campaign in support of membership back in 2003.

In a column he penned on Sunday in It-Torca, Sant – who resigned as Opposition leader in 2008 – claimed that an influential Libyan official told him personally that the Nationalist Party had convinced “an important faction in the Gaddafi leadership” that Malta would provide it with a “direct source of information” from the European Council – the EU’s highest organ of decision-making.

“They convinced them this would be a sure bet if the Nationalist were in power… and from this conviction, it seems that Libya funds were invested in an enormous campaign for Malta to become an EU member.”

In a statement, the PN described the claims as "complete hogwash".

"Seven years after his ‘Partnership’ was rejected, and the electorate voted, overwhelmingly, for EU membership, Alfred Sant is still bitter and comes up with fictitious allegations which are complete hogwash," the PN said.
 
The Nationalist Party also challenged Sant to substantiate "allegations with raw facts".

"He should also explain what financial assistance his Party received from the Gaddafi regime. Should Sant fail to do so, then the least Labour can do is to disassociate itself from Sant’s allegations."

Sant has also strongly hinted that ministerial influence was used for private gain of unnamed Nationalist ministers, in their dealings with the Libyan government.

“I remember one Libyan foreign minister confidentially complaining to me of his problem in dealing with the Nationalists in government: he couldn’t understand what were exactly the personal interests of those he was dealing with. It was as if they wanted a direct hand in the business deals that were being concocted (I’m being diplomatic in the way I describe his perplexity; he was aware of corruption in his country, but amazed with its spread in Malta).”

There have been no denials on Sant’s claims by the Nationalist Party since Sunday.

Sant, whose first major foreign policy was the withdrawal of Malta from NATO’s Partnership for Peace back in 1996, also criticised the government’s decision to reintroduce Malta into the PfP in 2008.

“There is no doubt that Malta’s PfP role, even as constituted now, is a blatant breach of the Constitution,” Sant wrote.

The former PM criticised the fact that Malta’s re-entry into PfP took place without being publicly declared. US embassy cables published in Wikileaks in fact reveal that Gonzi never intended making any public pronouncement on his intentions to ‘reactivate’ the PfP membership – on 31 January 2008, he informed US ambassador Molly Bordonaro that Malta would rejoin PfP if the Nationalists win the elections in March 2008.

Sant, who kept up his opposition to PfP in the run-up to the elections, also argued against apologists who claimed that Malta’s ‘Cold War’ neutrality clause was outdated.

“We could equally argue that after the referendum on divorce rendered obsolete the Constitutional clause that says Malta’s religion is Catholic…"