At next month’s European Parliament election, voters could either pick conservative candidates who believe the EU should remain unchanged or socialist candidates which would bring about a more social Europe, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.
Dr Muscat was speaking at the Labour Party’s official presentation of its 13 election candidates, as the campaign entered its sixth day.
The Prime Minister insisted that the past years had shown that the country needed MEPs who looked beyond partisan interests and who defended the national interest irrespective of who was in government, rather than exploit their position “to score cheap political points.” He said that the track record of Labour MEPs has been consistently in favour of Malta, but insisted that the same could not be said of Nationalist MEPs, who radically changed course when a change in government occurred.
Dr Muscat insisted that the next legislature of the European Parliament was a particularly crucial one, since Malta will be assuming control of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2017.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that for the first time, it will be up to MEPs to elect the President of the European Commission, stating that as a result, voters were being given the chance to have a say on the future direction of Europe.
Labour is endorsing the candidacy of the EP’s president Martin Schulz, with Dr Muscat pointing out that it was one of the first political parties to do so, and stressing that Mr Schulz’s agenda was effectively Labour’s own.
In contrast, he said, the “conservatives” represented by the PN wanted the EU to remain the one that mismanaged an economic crisis, and that saw people give up on Europe.
“We are in favour of EU, but we want a different model to the one of today. If people want the same model, they can vote for conservatives, but if they want a more social Europe, one that considers people’s needs more, is more realistic and does not impose rules that make no sense, they should choose our side,” Dr Muscat maintained.
The number of candidates being presented by the PL is the largest-ever presented by a Maltese political party for the European Parliament elections, but Dr Muscat insisted that the issue was not about having the largest team but the most competent one.
The Prime Minister was also asked about why the campaign was yet to go into actual issues that MEPs would deal with, with his party instead focusing on the government’s performance.
Dr Muscat insisted that it was the public which set the agenda, and said that he had no problem with discussing national issues – unlike the PN when it was in government.
The presentation of the PL candidates took place at a venue Dr Muscat had once written a book about – Fort Chambray in Gozo. “Roberto Memmo: l-iskandlu ta’ Chambray” had alleged irregularities in the way the site had been transferred to a company majority-owned by Mr Memmo: the site was eventually passed on to the family of Gozitan businessman Michael Caruana after the project ground to a halt.