It seems from what I am reading and hearing that the PN has read the signs of the times and is making the environment one of its foundation policies. This is not to say that the PN has never had strong environmental credentials. To mention a few policies established in the past, I can mention the setting up of Mepa and the creation of a national structure plan with ODZ lines put in, the treatment of all sewage water before being dumped into the sea, the setting up and monitoring of air monitoring stations, the establishment of VRT testing ever two years for all vehicles including emissions, the removal of highly polluting public transport buses that contributed heavily to air pollution. and their replacement with cleaner buses, the establishment of several national parks, the building of the Sant’Antnin solid waste treatment plant, the separation of waste at source and in practice, the establishment of the controlled engineered waste land-fill in Maghtab, limitations on the hunting season, the incentives for the use of solar energy panels and electric cars and finally the non-smoking legislation in several public areas. This is just a small list which is by no means exhaustive but it does show that the PN was not an environmental party as such but a party for the environment.

Does this mean that the PN should now focus solely on environmental issues? The answer to this question should be a definite no, because once political parties become single-issue parties, they lose public relevance as a political party and simply become a pressure group. Political issues are necessarily made up of many compound problems including those in the social and economic fields no less. However, it does mean that environmental considerations need to figure higher in the eco-social-market policies always espoused by the PN.

One field where the party has to make decisions is that regarding the field of ecology, especially that which underlines that we humans have evolved from and together with other species and that jointly we form a living community comprising several genetic resources which need to be conserved for future generations. This would involve adapting or moving away from past decisions that the party may have felt justified taking in the past but have now been surpassed by events. This is material that has to be urgently dealt with by the party’s policy groups, especially the environmental one!

However, there are a few other issues that also need looking into. The party has not realised that bioethical issues are overtaking much of the political agenda. Is the party facing these issues with objective policies made on professional advice or is it deciding issues solely on what it perceives would make it more popular in the short run and basing this only on subjective purely emotional advice? Does it realise that in striving to not appear backwards in this field or outdone by other parties, it is often rushing into consensual positions which often leave large sectors of the population feeling unrepresented?

This surely cannot be good in the long run where sectors of the population feel that some of their fundamental values which they hold dear and which the PN has always espoused, are being sacrificed on the altar of expediency. My long experience in bioethics has shown me that consensus on value decisions is usually elusive. Should this translate into sacrificing values for political expediency? I can understand that different people feel and espouse different values on different positions. I can understand that a party would want to appear cohesive in reaching a political position on certain issues. I can understand that it is often pushed to appear such by the agenda of the party in government. What I cannot understand is how a vote in Parliament on a law such as the Identity Disorder Act that was recently passed obtained overall consensus when there are obvious severe flaws in its drawing up. Not one voice questions the status quo or modus vivendi.

There is much to say here but since I have said what I want to say on TV, I will not repeat it. I think it is good for the party to establish policy positions on bioethical issues in its executive and after seeking objective professional advice (is it doing this?). However, expecting a political party to publicly appear cohesive on these issues in public and in Parliament when it knows that different value opinions abound, does not convey, to me, a healthy and mature approach to these bioethical issues.

The party should draw up its policies as it sees fit, but on these bioethical issues it should feel comfortable in allowing disagreements of conscience to be publically expressed. We are not living in the times of the ex-Stasi secret police in the former East Germany here. This is a living democracy, and in these issues it is healthy to let individual value-based differences to established party policy surface. That it is not happening is an unhealthy sign! What if, in the not too distant future, the party has to take a position on marriage between same sex partners or even abortion? Is it expected that all party members and MPs should knuckle under to a final decision by the party executive? Should all voters support the party if it agrees to these proposals in policy?

We need to be more realistic here. The sun has not come up today. The world has been turning long before we existed. Natural law positions are there for all to grasp. I know most of the PN MPs well, as well as several of the government MPs. I know what their personal sentiments on several bioethical issues are too. Why are we not hearing these views? Are they perceived as being counter cultural at present and therefore maybe too afraid to express themselves because of loss of political favour or position?

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