PL-PN steering committee ‘merely conducting an initial dialogue’ on constitutional reform

A “steering committee” made up of Labour and Nationalist representatives is tasked with mapping out the road to constitutional reform, the Office of the President said.

The committee, news of which emerged last week, will not at this stage be proposing changes to the Constitution and the talks have been described as an “initial dialogue”.

“The remit of the steering committee is to map out the process for the necessary dialogue as well as outline the consultation process that needs to be carried out,” a spokesperson for President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca told MaltaToday.

The President is chairing the committee, which is composed of three representatives from each of the two major political parties. The PL representatives are Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, Reforms Parliamentary Secretary Julia Farrugia Portelli and former deputy prime minister

Louis Grech, while the PN representatives are MP Chris Said, former European Commissioner Tonio Borg and Amy Camilleri Zahra.
A first meeting was held on Thursday and announced through a press statement released by the Office of the President.

Asked why the Democratic Party had been excluded from the steering committee, given it has two MPs, the President’s spokesperson said “a preliminary meeting was held with representatives of PD and Alternattiva Demokratika”.

“The President has already met with AD and PD respectively and explained that at this point the steering committee was merely conducting an initial dialogue, and this would eventually be opened further; this has to be an educational process that includes a wide and diverse contribution,” the spokesperson said.

PD leader Godfrey Farrugia confirmed his party had a meeting with Coleiro Preca, an hour before the steering committee meeting took place.
“The President has since 2014 been calling on the major political parties to get together and initiate constitutional reform so I can understand that the initial brainstorming session will involve the PL and the PN, now that she managed to bring them to the table after nearly five years,” Farrugia told MaltaToday.

He said the PD, since its inception in 2016, had publicly campaigned for constitutional reform to happen and will do nothing to scupper the process.

“But we will be involved, not least through our representation in Parliament, but also before the groundwork of this committee is complete. PD MPs are duty-bound to participate and contribute positively. It is our belief that the constitutional convention must proceed in a bottom-up approach as it belongs to the people,” he added.

Constitutional reform has been promised by all political parties but an attempt after the 2013 election to set up a constitutional convention was scuppered after the Opposition objected to government’s choice of former PN MP Franco Debono as coordinator.

This renewed process at trying to kickstart constitutional reform comes as Coleiro Preca’s term as President is nearing its end in April next year.

It has to be seen whether anything concrete will come out of these talks, which the Office of the President has described as “still at the preliminary stage”.

“The President has always expressed her wish to see the necessary constitutional reform take place, as was promised by political parties in their electoral manifestos. In her Republic Day speech, she had also made it clear that this should be carried out in a public and transparent way, and involve the entire country,” the spokesperson said.

Asked whether constitutional reform will eventually be subjected to a referendum, the Office of the President said that such a decision will be up to Parliament to decide.