[WATCH] ABBA leader pelts eggs at Robert Abela during Freedom Day speech

Robert Abela’s Freedom Day speech on Tuesday was interrupted by Ivan Grech Mintoff, leader of Partit ABBA, who threw eggs at his feet and claimed the government was destroying Malta’s neutrality.

Abela was delivering a speech at the Labour Party’s annual gathering near the Freedom Day monument in Birgu when Grech Mintoff went on stage and started to throw eggs at the prime minister’s feet.

In the official livestream of the event, Grech Mintoff could be heard lamenting the loss of neutrality.

Abela was taken by surprise and called for calm as party ushers rushed to remove Grech Mintoff from the stage. For a few seconds the live Facebook feed panned onto the monument.

In a statement, Partit ABBA said it was embarking on a disobedience campaign to "take back what was stolen from us", referring to Malta's constitutional neutrality and non-alignment.

"It is time to take back our full dignity as a proud nation, with strong values and identity, and we refuse to be used in this deceptive and dangerous way," the party said.

READ ALSO: Robert Abela tells Labour supporters: ‘We are the movement of love and peace’

On Wednesday morning, Labour MEP Cyrus Engerer described Grech Mintoff's actions as "unacceptable from the leader of a political party". 

"He has every right to his opinions, but in our country, every leader always treated other leaders with respect - even if they do not agree with each other," he said in a Facebook post. 

"This is the danger of the extreme right. A bunch of politicians who try to make noise with sensationalism and populism instead of policies and ideas."