What Prime Minister Robert Abela said he has negotiated during last week’s European Council summit was already guaranteed as part of the accession talks that Malta had with the European Union back in 2004, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said in Parliament.

Earlier in the sitting, Abela told Parliament of his satisfaction that Malta had secured a guarantee of its neutrality when it came to an agreement to increase defence spending within the EU.

However, Grech replied that these safeguards, which are present in Malta’s constitution, were already provided for and secured during negotiations when Malta was to join the European Union as a member state.

Grech continued by saying that the Prime Minister spent three weeks attacking the Nationalist Party by saying that the party’s support for increased investment in defence meant that “the PN wants to send your children to war.” Despite this, the PN leader said that the Prime Minister voting in favour of an investment in the Armed Forces of Malta shows his alignment with what the PN has been saying.

On the Green Deal, on which many farmers in several EU member states have been protesting, Grech said that that it was the government itself which signed up for this by voting in favour of it. Moreover, he noted that it is also the European Commission and the Council of Europe itself that is telling its members to fix its own problems.

On his part, PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami commented on Abela’s claim wherein he said that Malta will recognise Palestine as a state “when conditions are appropriate and circumstances are right.”

He said that there is no such thing as the “right circumstances,” and that Malta should recognise Palestine as a state now.

Defending his statements, the Prime Minister referred to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola’s visit to Israel earlier this year, saying that he visited no party in this war, thus asserting a position, “and then did not try to take it back further down the line.”

He also mentioned how it was during one of Metsola’s events in Austria that the Police was called after pro-Palestine students interfered with a protest. He said that students should be allowed to voice their opinion.

On Grech’s claim on what was negotiated on during the Brussels summit, the Prime Minister said that he has a letter of advice from the State Advocate, in which he said that these two clauses secured in the agreement align with Malta’s Constitution.