We now know how the vote in the European Parliament went but up to noon yesterday not many were to be found to bet that Tonio Borg’s passage through the European Parliament would be as smooth as it turned out to be.
On the contrary, as political group after another declared against him, the latest being the Socialists, we can say that many people in Malta, of whatever political hue, became quite anxious that the vote would be not just a negative one with regards to Dr Borg but a negative one with regards to Malta.
A negative vote, we all felt, would mean a European condemnation of all that Malta stands for.
For this country, for all its faults, has built a rather solid consensus on some issues about which other countries and peoples in Europe have taken a different stance.
It is true that Malta’s history was been one of front-line confrontation on behalf of Christendom against the Muslim south. This has engendered in the Maltese psyche a whole-hearted attachment to the Catholic faith, as crystallized in the Counter-Reformation and baroque mode.
On the one hand, in other words, Malta is European through and through for its values because Christianity historically is European, but then Malta has not passed through experiences that are equally constitutive of European values such as the Protestant Reform, the French Enlightenment, Marxism and Communism and the post-religious contemporary scene.
It was only in very recent years that Maltese society has begun taking some timid steps on issues that have long been present and common in the rest of Europe. Until a few years ago, the majority of Maltese attended Sunday Mass at their churches. It was only last year, and after a national controversy that could have split up the country, that Malta introduced divorce on the statute books.
Recognition of gays and their lifestyles is still at the beginning. And as for abortion, that is abhorred and condemned by a vast majority of Maltese of whatever political persuasion.
It is true that Dr Borg has consistently taken public stances against many of the developments outlined above although he has accepted the public verdict on divorce. But that put him in the mainstream of Maltese public opinion.
So when he was asked all those leading questions in the hearing before the European Parliament, it was not just Tonio Borg the politician who felt such questions were but a caricature of himself but the whole people of Malta.
Dr Borg then went on to write a statement of clarification to the MEPs and not everyone in Malta accepted he had done the right thing. In fact, elderly statesmen from both sides of the political divide, Eddie Fenech Adami from one side and George Vella from the other, publicly stated they disagreed with him for doing so. There was a rather general perception that Dr Borg had bent over backwards to placate the libertarian fringes of the Parliament.
But as the vote drew near one saw that instead of the issue becoming more tractable and composed, that many political groupings in Parliament became more and more hardline.
It is true that the institution that Dr Borg now heads, SANCO, has health (apart from consumer affairs) as its remit and that ethical issues proliferate on anything that concerns health and that a person with hardline opinions could do a lot of damage to accepted practices in this regard but that is not the Dr Borg we know. We know that but the MEPs, obviously do not.
Now we know that common sense has prevailed and that Dr Borg obtained the votes not just of the two political groups which said they would back him, but also individual votes from members of the other groups that turned him down.
That is a sign of approval from the rank-and-file MEPS of the way in which Dr Borg showed he had mastered the issues into which he was unexpectedly cast.
We can only wait now for Dr Borg to settle into his role and to start delivering. The Malta which yesterday, with bated breath, awaited the outcome of the vote, wishes him well in his new role.