[WATCH] Constitutional reform hindered by pandemic, says President George Vella

For President George Vella, national unity is an impossible, utopian idea - but this shouldn't preclude efforts to heal societal divisions.

TV veteran Reno Bugeja sat down with the President following his conference on ‘national unity’, to explore key sources of political divisions and a way forward for Malta’s unity project.

“There have always been political divisions, and there always will be,” Vella said. “No one is expecting political partisanship to end, otherwise we won’t have democracy.”

Bugeja questioned the decision to keep the conference as a ‘politician-free’ event, but Vella explained that the purpose of the discussion was to listen to civil society, not politicians.

“This is an exercise that builds consciousness,” he explained. “You need to educate, build from below, and make children conscious of the responsibility we have as citizens in a civilised community to respect each other.”

On constitutional reform, Vella said that COVID-19 threw a spanner in the works. All suggestions for the reform have been collected, and the team tasked with the reform process were looking to hold a convention housing around 120 people - but health authorities advised against doing so due to COVID-19 regulations.

He mentioned that constitutional recommendations from the Venice Commission also put a small halt to the progress.

Vella was outspoken on the issue of hatespeech, especially against immigrants or gender-minority groups.

“How can I imagine that we’ve arrived at a state where two people can decide to go on a shooting spree to kill a black man - we went through this! This should make the whole country red in the face.”

The president also gave his two cents on the party broadcasting debate. He explained that there had been a big thirst for pluralism in broadcasting when party stations were set up, and so these stations had certain functions.

“You need to have someone pointing and saying that they need to become more in line with what they’re supposed to be doing, but not closing them. I don’t feel a need to close them.”

Ultimately, he disagreed with closing the stations, but agreed to having a code of ethics for broadcasting operators.