Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi spoke about the late Gorg Borg Olivier, his predecessor as Nationalist Party leader and Prime Minister, at the Memorial Lecture 2007, on the theme “political visions for Malta since independence”. This was held on the 27th anniversary of Dr Borg Olivier’s death.

He started by quoting Alcide de Gasperi on the difference between a politician and a statesman. According to de Gasperi, he said, a politician looked ahead till the next election, a statesman looked ahead to the next generation.

Dr Borg Olivier was a statesman who had thought not only of his country’s future generations, but also of those of the world, Dr Gonzi said.

Later on this week, he added, many of them would be marking the 40th anniversary when Malta proposed to the UN General Assembly that the ocean space should be considered the common heritage of mankind. This proposal was still remembered 40 years after it was made, and that was the strongest indication that it was a policy which looked ahead even beyond the next generation.

When Dr Borg Olivier gained independence for Malta, Dr Gonzi said, he was roughly half way along his career as Prime Minister. Between 1964, when Malta gained independence, and 1971, when the Malta Labour Party won the government, he proposed political lines which still had an impact even today. He also set up institutions which were still in existence today – such as the army and the Central Bank. The tourism industry owes its beginnings here to his government. He set up the Malta Development Corporation.

At the United Nations his government brought up two subjects which today the whole world considers important. One was the proposal by Arvid Pardo, Malta’s UN representative, on the oceans as mankind’s common heritage. The other subject was raised through the Ministry of Social Policy of the time, led by Censu Tabone, and related to the social and economic consequences of societies which were aging because their birth rates were too low to provide for the elderly in society. The consequences of that on pensions and social benefits were well known today, Dr Gonzi said.

It was also Dr Borg Olivier who took the first steps for Malta to take its place in the European community, and his aim was full membership.

Today, Dr Gonzi added, the European Union was considering how to develop a policy integrated to maritime affairs. Which showed why today they could still consider Dr Borg Olivier as their contemporary. He was a statesman who prepared the way for today’s generation to work so that Malta could live its European and Mediterranean vocation.