Cachia Caruana ‘does not get to decide what’s in the national interest’ – Muscat

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat yesterday took permanent representative to the EU Richard Cachia Caruana to task over his role in reactivating Malta's participation in Nato's Partnership for Peace, bypassing the House of Representatives.

Muscat lambasted Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi over his testimony to the foreign affairs committee, in which he claimed Cachia Caruana was working on orders of the Cabinet and "in the national interest".

"The national interest is not determined by a public official but by the parliament of a country," Muscat said during a Labour party public activity.

Muscat said Gonzi has previously accused Labour of misunderstanding the content of the US embassy cables published by Wikileaks, which revealed Cachia Caruana's role in proposing a "procedural bandaid" and reverse Malta's withdrawal from PfP.

"Now Gonzi is trying to give a different interpretation to what Cachia Caruana said," Muscat said.

"Gonzi is taking umbrage that Labour is 'believing' what an American official is quoted as saying the cables," Muscat said. "The Nationalists were the same people who 'believed' a North Korean press agency in portraying me as having supported Pyongyang's missile launch... do they expect us not to believe what a United States functionary says in cables to Washington?"

Muscat said Labour was satisfied with Malta's participation in PfP but the party wanted to debate the actions of Cachia Caruana and the fact the party had been left in the dark about these developments.