[WATCH] Bartolo: My foreign policy views irked Abela… ‘I learnt to appreciate Mintoff much more’

Former foreign minister Evarist Bartolo has said his views on foreign policy had clearly irked Prime Minister Robert Abela.

Bartolo, interviewed on TVM’s XTRA Sajf, said Abela, who assumed the Labour leadership in 2020, had to face several new challenges, and said that Malta was now at crossroads, requiring it to reinvent itself.

Bartolo is known for his strong views on the Middle East, the domineering influence of the United States, and also the role of new players in the Mediterranean power zone – such as Turkey, a country that views itself as a regional superpower. “I wish Robert Abela could focus on the issues that influence the Mediterranean and the changing world,” Bartolo said.

“If there is something I learnt in the last two years as foreign minister... is that I learnt to appreciate Dom Mintoff much more. Yes, I think the way I viewed foreign policy matters [irked the administration]… I still had to do what I felt was in the national interest.”

Bartolo said Malta had to reinvent itself as an island-nation that capitalised on competitive niches based around taxation or aviation registration. “Today, with global rules on tax, aviation and environment, we need to seek to reinvent ourselves anew.”

“I wish Robert Abela takes greater initiative in understanding the global impact on Malta and what is influencing what we do, and appreciate better the Mediterranean region, and what’s happening in the world. Today politics is ‘glocal’ – global and local.”

Bartolo admitted that politicians had only themselves to blame for the bad name they have in politics, while recognising that their good work often goes unnoticed.

Bartolo admitted having given his own constituents a mistaken impression that he might not contest the 2022 elections, a factor he said had led to his not being elected. But he also revealed that the party had not backed his candidature. “I want to continue being active on the margins of politics.”

Describing the life of a politician as akin to that living “on an island of cannibals”, Bartolo said he had workd well with former PM Joseph Muscat as well as his disgraced chief of staff, Keith Schembri. “Muscat could have been remembered as one of the best PMs of this country, but his failure to act on Panama Papers was his biggest mistake.”

Bartolo also remembered his time as education minister under former PM Alfred Sant, whose two-year tenure came to an end with a snap election in 1998, saying he should not have confronted erstwhile leader Dom Mintoff – a view he said that had the benefit of hindsight.

Quizzed on his former canvasser who was accused and investigated for corruption, Bartolo said he never knew this person was involved in such activities. He argued that he focused most of his energy on his work as minister, and his mistake was not to look beyond this.

During the one-hour interview Balzan revisited Bartolo’s life as a student activist, a footballer with Mellieha, in theatre, his initiation in politics, including his 30 years as MP and 11 years as a minister, and his influence in setting up the Labour media.