Who is Wenzu Mintoff?

I am 44 years old and I have been involved in politics since I was 16, mostly with the Labour Party. I joined the Labour Youths when I was at university. I then passed through a period when I felt that the Labour Party needed to reform itself after spending many years in power – and I firmly believe that what I believed then about the Labour Party now applies to the Nationalist Party – power rots and from time to time you have to sweep clean. I was one of the people at the forefront of the movement which tried to reform the Labour Party. There was a time when I was not a member of the Labour Party, but today I am comfortable working in the Labour Party again because the reforms that I had wished for were made, with my indirect contribution, but primarily because Alfred Sant has managed to bring Labour back to a respectable level, so much so that he won the 1996 general election.

You had left the Labour Party together with Toni Abela to set up Alternattiva Demokratika and then both of you rejoined Labour. What led to go back into the Labour fold?

To be precise, I did not leave Labour. I found myself dismissed from the party due to the action taken by the board of vigilance and discipline, which, with others I had been instrumental in setting up. I did not leave Labour to establish Alternattiva As a person who has always been involved in politics, I did not wish to be left out, but I always was on the Left, even when I was at Alternattiva. I rejoined the Labour Party when the reasons for which I had been removed ceased to exist. These reasons were preventing Labour from making use of its full potential. These problems do not exist anymore, I have been back in the Labour Party for the past five years.

Do you think grassroots Labour supporters have accepted you back into the party?

Yes, I am convinced they have. When people approach me and refer to the period when we had been dismissed from the Party, they say that they had not agreed with the method we used at the time, because we had washed our dirty linen in public. But most of them agree that we were right at the time. We had made a public statement in which we had listed the problems which we thought had to be tackled by the Labour Party as they were pulling the party down. I believe that the Labour grassroots appreciate that the intentions were very genuine and I feel this all the time.

What do you think should be the role of Maltese representative in the European Parliament?

This is not a one-way process but a two-way one. Our representatives in the European Parliament must ensure that the regulations, structures and processes in the EU function in such a way that they take into consideration the specific and particular circumstances of a small island. Being on the periphery of the European continent and therefore far away from the centre of the markets puts us at a disadvantage to deliver our products there. Our representatives in the EP must always keep these disadvantages in mind whenever there are laws passed which would leave an impact on this tiny island. We must insist that we are an ex-colony, our level of development is not the same as those of larger countries which were used to colonise, rather than be colonised. We must appeal to those who are drafting those laws and regulations to keep this in mind. Because EU laws are applicable directly and automatically and have to be enforced by the Maltese courts, as much as domestic laws are, then the Maltese people – irrespective of whether they agreed with membership or not – must continuously have a say and participate in the process when these laws are being enacted. Each Maltese MEP must study and evaluate the impact of these laws on Malta’s particular situation. On the other hand, through our participation, albeit small, we must influence the development of the EU so that it does not become a fortress Europe, a federal State which marginalises the participation of small countries. We must also give our contribution to the development of the new EU Constitution since a EU federal State would not suit a small country like Malta. If the inter-governmental approach is adopted, then Malta would have the same say as all the large countries, but with the community approach, that say would be proportional to the country’s size.

If you are elected to the European Parliament, would you be ready to work together with the other Maltese MEPs from the Nationalist Party or possibly Alternattiva Demokratika in cases of common national interest?

This is a very crucial point. There are certain situations where ideology counts, since it inspires one’s work. However, the disadvantages arising from Malta being a small country on the periphery of the EU will affect everybody, irrespective of whether you are a Labourite, a Nationalist or an ecologist. There are situations where, as Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said when he attended the first EU summit in Brussels, EU rules need to be applied more flexibly. Thus there is a certain convergence with Labour’s position before the referendum on EU accession that the ‘one size fits all’ model was not right for Malta. Labour wanted a model that took into consideration the country’s specific circumstances and thus be more flexible. There is common ground on this issue, not necessarily only with the other Maltese MEPs but also with other MEPs coming from, for example, Cyprus, since they suffer from the same disadvantages of being on the periphery of the EU like Malta.