While I have no hesitation in condemning the Prime Minister for his fundamentalist speech on the divorce issue in Parliament, where he even stooped so low as to drag into the whole debate such totally unrelated issues as euthanasia and abortion to resort to scare tactics, try unsuccessfully to rally his own troops and attempt to swing public opinion his way on the divorce issue, I equally have no qualms about feeling reassured and comforted by the fact that there has been not only convergence in our national foreign policy these last few days, but a touch of consensus too

This can be seen at least in the way the Libya crisis has been handled at leaders’ level. I also honestly hope that the PN will follow the example of the PL whenever the former may be in Opposition, by acting with the same sense of responsibility that the PL is currently showing, should similar international crises next to our shores surface again.

I welcome the fact that in spite of the economic impact that developments in Libya will undoubtedly have on our country, our main political forces now agree that we should continue to be prudent, keep national security as our utmost priority, and also continue to offer to serve as a Mediterranean humanitarian hub without ignoring our international obligations.

The unusual step that both Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat had declared independently of one another that Malta should not serve as a military base was as reassuring as the fact that as a country we were deeply committed and had a duty to follow UN resolutions to the letter.

With all this talk of the interests of the Libyan people’s at heart by others, Joseph Muscat struck a chord on Sunday when he said that when mentioning our potential as a humanitarian hub, this meant that all those in need should be able to find their assistance in Malta and that our island should be the country which helped the Libyan people.

Under present circumstances as escalation in Libya seems to be the order of the day in the implementation of the UN resolution, Malta should continue to be prudent.

Never have I been approached by so many young people who showed deep concern about experiencing for the first time the real value of peace as well as how better it was to live in a peaceful zone rather than in a conflict area.

One hopes that all those countries which have been quick to rightly and justifiably shower praise upon our country for having helped their nationals in their evacuation from Libya when the uprising started, will also support us tangibly in the coming days should there be an influx of illegal migration from North Africa.

Although I am aware that European Parliament resolutions are non-binding and that executive decisions are taken by governments not MEPs, I find it baffling that:

• While the European Socialists had understood our concern on illegal immigration and had even presented a non-binding resolution to make this obligatory, their resolution had been drastically changed by the European People’s Party of which the Nationalist MEPs form part.

• It was even more worrying that while the PM declared that Malta will not be used as a military base for the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya as well as ‘all the necessary measures’ that might emanate from UN Resolution 1973 on Libya, on more than one occasion leading Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil declared in no uncertain terms that we should offer all we can (implicitly suggesting military assets) in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in order to support international military forces.

Although the Prime Minister last Sunday chose to criticise foreign news reports which suggested Malta was sitting on the fence on the Libyan crisis and insisted his government was fully cooperating with the implementation of the UN resolution, for some reason or other he kept back from criticising those traditionally pro-PN media and ‘new media’ groupies who chose to single him, the Foreign Minister and the Leader of the PL out, for not having taken the militaristic course, while accusing them of having chosen to allow Malta to be neutered under the pretext of its neutrality.

That Malta has more than its fair share of hired guns is no big secret. Mercenaries are not only to be found in Libya.

But it would be interesting to find out who these local sources’ main drivers happen to be; whether they are Maltese nationals too as well as what their agenda could really be.

Even more worrying was the statement carried last Sunday evening quoting former President Eddie Fenech Adami as stating that if allied forces need to use Malta to carry out the UN mandated military action against Libya, we should accept.

Within the same breadth I find it risible that others felt that the UN should have focused on mediation to allow for a political solution to be found and that Malta should not even ‘allow’ planes to ‘violate’ our airspace.

I doubt how many have bothered to actually read and scrutinise the UN Security Council resolution itself.

I had long predicted that if the threats and attacks on innocent civilians in Libya would continue, any UN Security Council resolution would go beyond a mere no-flight zone and also includes an ‘all necessary measures’ clause to protect civilians in Libya from the reported attacks by its own government. The way for action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which authorises the use of force, was triggered by the specific mention of the situation in Libya as ‘a threat to international peace and security’.

While one cannot treat lightly the fact that the League of Arab States, the African Union and the Secretary General of the Islamic Conference condemned the serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that have been committed so close to our shores, there were other developments that characterised these last few days and hours.

Many legal experts have argued that the language of the UN resolution while forbidding foreign occupation is so broadly worded that it amounts to an open-ended declaration of war on a particular country. If that is true or not still has to be seen. While the Americans claim that they do not intend to target Gaddafi, the British Defence Secretary is reported to have said that allied forces would treat Gaddafi himself as a legitimate target for air strikes.

History in the not-so-distant past has often shown an increasing tilt towards the application of what is nowadays being termed as selective justice.

While it is easy to make the argument for ‘war’ against a particular country, particularly in the light of genocidal accusations, it is often impossible to know when or how the conflict will end. And even worse, what type of regime or type and style of governance could follow in the coming months.

What happened these last few days in various Arab and Gulf countries is not only likely to undermine the democratic awakening in the Arab world, but it is now up to the big powers themselves to seize the opportunity to put past stances behind them and start seriously thinking of aligning their interests with democratic change and economic progress. So far interests and values have proved to be a mismatch in effective terms in many a country.

Several leaders have said Gaddafi must go, but Resolution 1973 does not explicitly call for regime change or sanction a foreign occupation force. And no one is yet prepared to commit ground forces. Whether it will still lead to that is another matter altogether. My impression is that it remains a priority item.

Let us see how things will develop in the coming days and hours. Once the dust finally settles – if it does at all – Europe must put its thinking hat on to develop a truly effective and pro-active Neighbourhood Policy towards the whole Mediterranean region rather than merely trying to get its act together only when flash points surface on the political radar.

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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change