It is a healthy sign that Malta is moving towards more and more converging positions on various foreign policy issues.

But this was definitely not the case in the past when we first established relations with China and the Palestinians, as well as when our ties with Libya were put on a stronger footing.

Now all this seems to be water under the bridge, although recently I was given to understand by some diplomatic contacts of mine that people in the Government – neither the Minister nor his staff – have allegedly tried to give one of the key players in the Middle East conflict reason to understand that the MLP was taking an antagonistic position against another key player.

This, simply because in our draft statement on foreign affairs we had pledged to continue to participate actively in the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

What these “kind hearts” failed to mention was that, apart from committing ourselves to the Middle East Road Map in the hope that it will eventually lead to a “two state solution” in the region, we pledged to strengthen our relations with the Maghreb countries, and those of the Mashrek and Arabian Gulf regions, in the same way we had also committed ourselves to developing relations with Israel on various fronts.

The Minister reassured the House that it was a matter of satisfaction that there is so much consensus nowadays, even on EU issues.

As my colleague George Vella pointed out forcefully, this does not seem to be the same mindset of the Nationalist media, that still continues to go out of its way to sow doubts about our position on future relations with the European Union, to the extent of trying to rubbish us every time we make a pronouncement on the subject.

In fact, only last week, when Louis Grech and Simon Busuttil addressed the European Parliament on the need for tangible solidarity on Europe’s part on the illegal immigration issue, they did not even bother to mention that my friend Louis Grech had contributed positively to the debate.

Recently, an interesting parliamentary debate took place on Malta’s foreign policy. For some reason – as yet unexplained – it was either under-reported or not reported at all in the local media.

Although I was a bit disappointed that the Minister did not bother to address at least 14 of the points raised for further clarification at my end, I must confess that I cannot accept his irritability at the fact that I questioned the real level of support that a number of his initiatives have actually managed to secure.

This applies to both his Central Mediterranean Economic Forum

proposal as well as his proposal for a structured dialogue between Europe and the Arab League.

I made it clear that, as a Labour Party, we will support any Mediterra-nean linked initiative – whatever form it may have or take, in the same way we have already embraced in principle the Mediterranean Union proposal made by the new French President Sarkozy.

But in order to lend our full support to these initiatives we first must at least be kept fully in the loop about what is really happening on the ground as well as the feedback government has been getting from neighbour states to its various proposals.

There are times when we feel misled on these issues because one moment we learn – almost invariably in the same Sunday newspaper – that support for proposal X is continuing to gain ground and momentum and then the next we learn through our diplomatic contacts that certain countries’ reaction is nothing but tepid, to put it mildly.

It might be true that the Euro-Arab League issue is set to be discussed at GAERC level in the next few days. I sincerely wish the minister luck on this issue.

But to date, the minister has never bothered to inform us about stands, positions and reactions to it that we came to know of from other circles – primarily that certain individual countries’ reaction to this proposal ran as follows:

• Some questioned the scale of such a meeting

• Others found it hard to gauge and understand its feasibility

• Other countries made the point that the Arab countries needed to be made aware that the Union’s core values, such as human rights, the rule of law and democracy, needed to be on the agenda for discussion

• Smaller countries preferred to wait to see what the reaction of the “big” countries would be before they took a position

• Certain key players supported the principle but had some concern about the modalities

• Some showed concern about the exclusion of Israel

• While others also questioned the timing.

This is the stuff we should be briefed about, if not in Plenary then at least in the Foreign & European Affairs Committee – if need be “in camera”.

Just feeding us platitudes to the effect that this proposal is continuing to gain ground, without going into specifics, is an insult to us parliamentarians, particularly to those who shadow external relations.

After years of strife and division, government must realise that consensus still needs to be hard earned.

Let us hope that this spirit of goodwill and convergence will continue to prevail, even if the Nationalists find themselves relegated to the Opposition benches in the next few months.

Which brings me to the illegal immigration issue, about which we need to be four square in trying to help Malta get out of the corner into which it has been boxed by its neighbours.

Last week, the two heads of the Maltese political groups in the European Parliament accused Frontex of failing to act. I cannot but agree more. But sometimes I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that people have been expecting things from Frontex that it never really set out to deliver – apart from the fact that it has been virtually a dead letter from the word go.

This was confirmed by a recent London Sunday Times article which, after stating that Frontex officials sounded doubtful about what it could do, then quoted Daniela Munzbergova, a spokeswoman for the organisation , as saying: “The responsibility to control the border rests with the member states. Frontex just exists to enhance the co-operation of member states when doing that.”

Next Friday we are set to welcome the President of the European Commission to our House of Representatives.

The Head of the EU Commission Office in Malta was happy blogging about how nice it would be to see Mr Barroso stopping for a warm cappuccino at Café Cordina – one of my favourite coffee shops in town – as he is apparently set to do.

I think it would be more opportune when he turns up in Malta, if we were to give him a piece of our mind, politely but very firmly, to show that although Malta is ready to live up to all its obligations within the EU, we are not ready to allow anybody to ride roughshod over us because of our small size, particularly at a point in time when a number of member states seem to be far more interested in “protecting” their commercial and economic interests elsewhere, rather than offering tangible solidarity to us Maltese.

If we have obligations as EU member states, then the EU itself has moral obligations in our regard too!

Shame

Shame on all the Mepa members who chose to give the impression that they were mere government stooges by voting in favour of the Ramla l-Hamra project in Gozo without having the courage to raise a dissenting voice.

Shame on government, which chose to sit back passively and commemorate Environment Day by allowing Ramla l-Hamra to be environmentally raped!

Shame on the case officer who allegedly considered this application favourably, given that the land in question has apparently been the subject of a number of illegal developments, as well as for allegedly misleading the Mepa board on the subject. A correction or reply to this effect would possibly help mitigate matters, although it is now rather too late in the day to do so!

Shame on the Prime Minister who this time round seemed to have forgotten all about his party’s new found Green and environmental credentials by not raising a finger to stop this corrosive process!

Shame on the Environment Minister who was busy lecturing primary school children on the environment while this environmental tragedy was taking place!

Shame on all those who chose to keep mum, particularly the Gozo Minister who, rather than resisting this environmental catastrophe, gave the impression that they preferred to sit back and play the violin while Ramla l-Hamra literally burned, like Rome during the decaying period of the Roman Empire.

Shame on all those who turned their backs on the unanimous plea for solidarity made by Xaghra local council!

Shame on those who woke up to the environmental cruelty of it all, and chose to speak up only when the damage was irreparably done!

From the information I have, this is a scheduled and protected area, and when the promoters applied for a planning permit, Mepa allegedly already had clear guidelines that clearly stated that the DCC would NOT consider a development permit unless the illegal development was regularised.

The Maltese and Gozitan public are still stunned and unable to understand how Mepa even considered this application when it has long been a well-known fact that this development was allegedly plagued with irregularities such as roads and parking areas.

Is it true that, at some stage, this application was handled by the Major Projects Unit at Mepa, when it is none other than a commercial villa development?

Is it true or not that this application has been wrongly handled in the sense that, given that the site allegedly already contained illegal development, the application should not even have been considered from the outset?

By now, statements and media releases are definitely not enough to remedy matters.

The whole scandal warrants a truly independent investigation, to find out if this was a case where strings were being pulled by people who might have had a hidden or not so hidden agenda, as well as by others who might have even had a direct vested interest in the project. And by people, I mean people in high places in the sister island of Gozo.

Unfortunately, when we talk of rape in this tiny island of ours, we only tend to think in sexual terms. The realities on the ground show that the big picture is far wider than that.

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