From Mr E. Privitera

Is it possible that the head of the EU Commission in Malta, Dr Joanna Drake (of Iva, Malta fl-Ewropa fame), thinks that readers will believe her when she wrote that “the Reform Treaty had to be signed because EU citizens requested it”, as reported in your issue of 16 December?

Who does Dr Drake think she is fooling? If the EU Commission truly believes that EU citizens have been requesting the signing of the so-called “Reform Treaty”, alias the former EU Constitutional Treaty disguised under another name, why are the EU Commission and national government leaders denying EU citizens from having their say in national referenda on this “Sham Treaty”?

Is it not because the EU Commission and heads of national governments know perfectly well, that if they do give this truly democratic right to their citizens, the so-called “Reform Treaty” will again come a cropper, just as the former Constitutional Treaty did when the French and Dutch people gave the EU Commission an emphatic “no”?

Allow me also to comment on another one of Daphne’s regular diatribes on Dr Alfred Sant. In her article “Dear God, what a snob” (TMIS, 16 December), Daphne wrote that Dr Sant’s refusal to take part in a debate with Dr Lawrence Gonzi on Xarabank, was because he (Dr Sant) believes that it would be beneath him to do so! This remark was one of the most stupid remarks she has ever made!

Incidentally, I have been watching TV debates by both Democrat and Republican candidates who are running for their party’s nomination for the presidential election in 2008. They were being given the same time and asked the same question by a moderator. It was a delight to watch these debates since it was possible to assess the abilities and the weaknesses of each candidate on the various topics raised by the moderator. There were no interruptions by the moderator.

Were all the prospective candidates for President of the United States of America also “snobs” because they were taking part in a serious and civil debate with “a stopwatch clasping nodding dog” as Mrs Caruana Galizia put it?

In her article, Mrs Caruana Galizia did not write one word in defence of Dr Gonzi for refusing to meet Dr Sant in a series of similar debates on TVM. Once she feels she is much more intelligent than the rest of us, she knows that there is no argument she can make to defend Dr Gonzi for his refusal. Why can’t we have similar debates like those in Europe and the USA, where the moderator has no hidden political agenda to choose the “clips’ he wants, make timed interruptions and choose questions that can favour one side over the other?

Should we conclude then, that Dr Gonzi has refused Dr Sant’s challenge because he feels “comfortable” having such a person running the show rather than having a moderator who is acceptable to both leaders? Why is Dr Gonzi so afraid of playing on a level playing field and is only willing to play on a playing field where he knows that the referee is very sympathetic to him but does not like his opponent one iota?

When Mrs Caruana Galizia described Dr Sant as a man “who thinks he’s superior to the rest of us”, she must have been looking at the mirror. If there is a person who feels, and tries hard to show it, superior to the rest of us, then that person is the “Oracle” from Bidnija!

I close with a quotation from your correspondent from Canada, Anthony Azzopardi, who also wrote his “thoughts of Mrs Caruana Galizia’s imagination” in the same issue (TMIS, 16 December). “This well-paid journalist, who demoralises with her character assassination, is invariably plain and the world looks upon her as someone who has either abandoned her good principles or never possessed them in the first place.” I tend to believe the latter!

Eddy Privitera

MOSTA