Labour, once a staunch opponent of NATO programme, goes to House for PfP approval

Beppe Fenech Adami, a veteran from the last Gonzi administration, has the last parliamentary incursion on the hotly debated Partnership for Peace fresh in his mind: in 2012, it cost Malta’s permanent representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana, his job after a vote of no confidence was supported by the Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who voted in favour of the Opposition motion.

Now in the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, the Labour government is proposing reaffirming the PfP agreement it had staunchly opposed in 1995 – Alfred Sant pulled Malta out of the NATO programme immediately upon his election in 1996.

In 2012, under Joseph Muscat, Labour deftly managed to draw Cachia Caruana into its parliamentary crosshairs, by accusing him of manoeuvring Malta’s 2008 reactivation in such a manner as to bypass House ratification.

Fenech Adami, then a member of Cabinet, is now telling foreign minister Ian Borg he is glad to see Labour come around on the subject. “The government is politically vindicating what the Nationalist Party has been saying all these years... that participation in the PfP does not, in any way, breach our constitutional neutrality.”

Beppe Fenech Adami (above left) told foreign minister Ian Borg (right) he is glad to see Labour come around on the subject

“This is a U-turn for the government,” he told Borg in the foreign affairs committee earlier this week. “The Opposition is in favour of Malta’s participation in the PfP and as we said so many years ago, this is no breach of our neutrality... as stated by the State Advocate and NATO’s legal office.”

The young Ian Borg argues that a new dimension exists for Malta to have its PfP membership retained and is unable to recall the circumstances in which the Muscat-led opposition weaponised the PN’s unorthodox, if not illegal procedure, to decapitate Cachia Caruana. “We are recommending the renewal of this agreement, which fully conforms to Malta’s limitations in terms of its constitutional neutrality – as explained in the memorandum,” he told MPs.

Little to no discussion took place on the proposal to retain Malta’s participation in the PfP, save for Fenech Adami’s intervention.

The 2012 PfP saga

With no public pronouncement ever made on Malta’s intention to rejoin the PfP in 2008, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had back then already informed the United States ambassador Molly Bordonaro of Malta’s intentions to reactivate participation, two months before clinching re-election in 2008.

The US embassy cables leaked by Wikileaks in 2011 had revealed the key role played by Richard  Cachia Caruana, who had been complaining of Malta’s inability to attend EU defence meetings where NATO classified information is discussed.

But the Maltese government faced a major hurdle due to popular sentiment on joining the PfP being split right down the partisan divide due to Labour’s opposition to the PfP – unchanged since 1996.

Cachia Caruana had an inventive solution, telling the Americans that Malta would declare it had “simply ceased active participation” in PfP – but not that it had formally withdrawn from the agreements as Sant had indeed done in 1996.

The Americans dubbed it a “procedural band aid” to allow Malta to bypass the need for House ratification.

By arguing that the prior PfP agreement ‘remained in force’, Cachia Caruana was proposing something in direct contrast to the “unconditional withdrawal” stated in the 1996 letter to NATO from then Labour foreign minister George Vella.

In 2008, the PN reactivated Malta’s PfP a day after the elections, as a rudderless Labour reeling from its loss and Sant’s resignation was unable to offer a political response.

In conversations with US ambassador Douglas Kmiec, Vella later complained that the government had circumvented Malta’s Treaties Act, because joining PfP required a parliamentary resolution.

He was right, and the US embassy cables revealed that Gonzi never intended making any public pronouncement on his intentions to ‘reactivate’ the PfP membership, let alone informing the House.

As noted by Bordonaro in her cables to Washington D.C. in 2008, the decision had hardly been criticised in the media, “in large part because of the sudden roll-out. The Opposition’s criticism went further: in addition to being incensed at the lack of consultation, MLP officials are claiming the decision violated the neutrality clause in Malta’s constitution…”

But it was only years later, when the cables were leaked in 2011, that Labour took the fight to the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, grilling Cachia Caruana on his role in reactivating the PfP membership, and proposing a motion of censure that found the welcome reception of a disgruntled government MP who had no love lost for ‘RCC’: Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.