Malta's neutrality is not outdated, and “it’s far more relevant today”, PL MEP candidate Clint Azzopardi Flores told The Malta Independent on Sunday.
"You need to have people who are honest brokers. My interest is for the EU to advance economically and make social progress. You can only achieve that through peace," he said.
Azzopardi Flores, an economist who has experience working in the EU and who had been the Maltese Government’s representative in the EU Political and Security Committee for a time, was asked by The Malta Independent on Sunday about a number of topics including foreign policy, neutrality, his criticism of presidents of EU institutions and his position on spring hunting.
Azzopardi Flores criticised both European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for getting involved in the EU’s foreign affairs, saying that issues relating to foreign affairs aren’t the competence of the European Parliament or the European Commission.
He said that Metsola shouldn’t have been the first EU representative to visit Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022. Instead, he said, the European Union’s High Representative, Josep Borell, should have been the first to visit.
Borell had visited Ukraine before Russia’s invasion, but Metsola was the first EU high-level EU official to visit after the war broke out. Borell visited Ukraine again after.
Told that Metsola’s visit to Ukraine was an act of solidarity and was viewed as an act of bravery, he said that the EU has a high representative.
“There is a race to see who would be more visible,” he said, adding that this isn’t coming from Metsola, but has been the case for years between the institutions.
As for the argument that the European Parliament members are elected directly by the people and that the visit to Ukraine was symbolic, he said that there is a time for everything in life. “The symbol had to be after Borell visited as the High Representative.”
“It is good that you support Zelenzkyy, but you need to give a chance to the High Representative to go. The High Representative would go first, then you would go and issue statements and resolutions. After all there is no legal instrument in the EU Parliament that would bind anyone on Foreign Affairs, and it is just political.”
That is why there is so much confusion on foreign affairs and international affairs, as they rushed into competences that aren’t theirs, he said, in reference to both the Ukrainian visit, as well as Metsola and Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Israel.
As for the articles he writes, he said that he has been more critical of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen than Metsola. “Today I criticise Metsola after the mess made in Israel. You can say that she went on to make a resolution, receive a trophy etc. but the argument is one, Israel is not Ukraine.”
Both Metsola and Von der Leyen travelled to Israel in October 2023, soon after the attacks on 7 October when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing over 1,000 people and took hostages. But their visit saw them receive criticism.
Azzopardi Flores said that by going to Israel, the EU Parliament President and the European Commission President “sent the wrong message. With the same equivalence, they should have met with the President of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas on the same day. Metsola and Von der Leyen sent the wrong message, you had to meet both.”
Metsola has been criticised by both Azzopardi Flores as well as other exponents of the Labour Party over the past months. Asked whether there is a campaign within the PL to try and discredit Metsola out of fear that she might eventually be a PN Leader, he denied it. “Not at all,” he said.
More Europe, less Europe
Azzopardi Flores was asked whether he believes we need more Europe or less Europe. “More Europe, but a different Europe. I don’t want a Europe built simply on defence. I don’t agree with an EU army, and I don’t agree with the defence they are proposing, especially when it comes to nuclear proliferation. That is not a Europe I believe in. The Europe I believe in is what it was created for, to create economic growth and for wealth to be divided between all countries, and that if it is to be divided among all nations, the raison d’etre was not to have conflict and war.
“I don’t agree with having people, like the European Commission President, saying that people were living in an illusion of permanent peace. I don’t accept that argument, that is her opinion.”
As for arguments that the stances being taken are because there is a war on the EU’s border, where Russia invaded Ukraine, he said: “The problem isn’t that there is a war on Europe’s border.” He said that the problem was that countries didn’t want to negotiate security guarantees with Russia in the first place. “When Putin came to negotiate the security guarantees, they didn’t want to negotiate with him and told him that Ukraine gets to decide. Yes, it decides, but at the right moment at the right time." He said that Latvia is in NATO and is bordering Russia, "but it was done at the right moment, at the right time".
Asked whether he condemns Russia's aggression in Ukraine, he said "definitely. That was the point of departure; that you cannot change your frontiers with arms aggression”.
He was also critical of the EU not taking similar action in terms of sanctions when it came to the situation with Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. “Here the Armenians were pushed out. Sanctions weren't issued against Ilham Aliyev as they did on Putin.”
“If there is disputed territory that you cannot change with arms aggression under international law, it is wrong for Russia just as it is wrong for Azerbaijan. You cannot change the frontiers if there are disputed territories. But Azerbaijan did that and nothing was done about it.”
Defence spending
Turning to defence spending, he was told that there is a difference in threat from Azerbaijan when compared to Russia, that some EU states on the border with Russia are afraid and that even once neutral states like Sweden and Finland have now joined NATO.
"If there is a security problem, it will always be NATO to come first before the EU. If hypothetically Russia were to attack Poland, they would not invoke Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty (Mutual defence clause), but will invoke Article 4 for consultation in NATO, and from that decision for collective defence will invoke NATO's Article 5. They will not invoke Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty.”
Turning to defence funding, he said that there are funds for defence emerging from the EU budget that cannot finance lethal weapons, which could be used for things such as cybersecurity, tackling hybrid threats, countering disinformation campaigns, and so on. "What is bothering me is the proposal they want to make for funds to be taken from parts which we pay into as Malta and which we had negotiated not to be used to pay for arms.”
Asked how he would have handled the Russia situation, he said: "If I was the top diplomat in this whole situation, I would have proposed giving Russia certain security guarantees, lengthening as much as we can, but the process of getting Ukraine into the EU would have been seriously accelerated, making an exception for it, so that its security would be integrated with that of Europe under Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty," as that would have meant a situation where if it was attacked, then it could invoke that article, he said.
Spring hunting
Asked about his stand on spring hunting, he spoke of the need to ensure that all countries are doing their part. “Sustainability does not end with Malta. Sustainability is bigger than Malta. If we are giving third countries funds for development and they are killing a lot of a species and statistics drop, while I’m not saying we should interfere in that country, if we give them funds we should include conditions to better understand the statistics that are subsequently quoted by Birdlife Malta.”
He said that if, for instance, there are controls and the species does not reduce in number, then the minority of hunters in Malta could be left alone hunting. “But we need to be correct, sustainability does not just stop with Malta. There are third countries who the EU gives money to that we must see do not kill so much of a species and allow for breeding.” He said that if the number of a species dropped, it did not stop with Malta; they were not killed in Malta and the Maltese must be allowed to hunt under the right conditions, as much as it happens in other countries. I always side with minorities. That is my argument.”
Irregular migration
Turning to irregular migration, he was asked whether he believes that Mediterranean states trying to cooperate with countries like Libya is the right way forward, and he was also asked for his opinion on what needs to be done to ensure more solidarity and action by EU states not bordering the Mediterranean.
“Operation Sofia, which was stopped, had primary tasks to identify smugglers, break smugglers’ models and reduce human trafficking. They killed Operation Sofia. Josep Borell was appointed and Operation Irini was set up. Its primary task was not to save lives at sea or break smugglers models, those were secondary tasks.”
Its main task, he said, was to implement embargoes on fuel and arms. “When this happened, they created a difference in the type of military mission. The aim of Operation Sofia was to train the Libyan Coast Guard, to have a rescue centre there, to have direct contact with the Libyan Coast Guard. The focus of Operation Irini was more to inspect vessels coming from the Eastern Turkish Coast to see if they had arms heading to Tripoli."
On the migration question, he said that when it was seen that operation Irini wasn't making headway on this issue, some started making agreement, including the Italians that bought vessels for the Libyan Coast Guard through what is known as an EU managed Trust Fund.
"The way migration will be dealt with, as far as I understand, is that even the processing of certain migrants would take place in other countries which would be deemed to be safe."
He said that when many migrants had come to Malta, other EU countries did not really take many of them, and so the share of solidarity stopped with Italy and Malta, Spain, Greece and Cyprus. The solidarity argument, he said, needs to be focused on helping all countries. He said that at some point Malta had been left completely alone.
He said that over the recent years arrivals to Malta reduced a lot as the points smugglers would leave from moved. Intelligence on smugglers needs to be shared, he said
He also said that at one point they were talking about setting up an EU Special Representative for Libya, but this never materialised.
Top priorities
Asked what his top priorities would be as an MEP, he mentioned the economic and social sectors. He said that by marrying these two sectors, one pushes for a better quality of life. To have that, he said, one needs security which can be achieved through advocating for diplomacy in all fora to promote peace.
As for particular proposals, Azzopardi Flores said that one priority regarding the economy is for startups to have access to funding which would not be as bureaucratic as certain EU funds require. He said that in small countries, these startups serve as a kind of ecosystem for SMEs, "many of which need this kind of system to continue flourishing when it comes to creating wealth in the economy”.
At EU level, he said, there is a situation where many EU funds are subject to a lot of bureaucracy. "I understand the reason for it,” he said, “but when it comes to SMEs, I think they need to relax the bureaucracy a bit so that they can create the kind of flexibility they need”.
Tourism will be another of his priorities, Azzopardi Flores said, "to strengthen tourism, and to strengthen the quality and sustainability of tourism".
Azzopardi Flores was also asked about the economic support mechanism introduced in Malta, such as the Stabbiltà initiative and the energy subsidy. "If the government did not provide that stability, we would have had an economic growth problem. Economic growth only occurs when there is a sentiment of certainty. If you know that you would need to pay a certain amount per year on your home, then you would know if you are able to spend on a holiday for instance. It’s the same idea when it comes to the economy, if people know that they will spend only a certain amount because of government subsidies, the economy will continue growing.
"If you don't offer that stability and don't have that economic growth, then you will have a problem with the deficit and the debt-to-GDP." Deficit and debt are, universally, calculated as a ratio of the GDP, which is economic growth, he said. "The moment economic growth falls, the deficit would rise, as will the debt."