It is often said that Maltese MEPs take national politics with them to Brussels, in the sense that they are keener to protect the party they represent rather than seek national interest. Do you agree with such a statement?

Depends what you mean by it. If it means that MEPs should go along with other MEPs from their country who seek to export to the European Parliament national contentious issues, then I think it's a pathetic statement and disagree with it completely. In my past 10 years at the EP serious political scandals flared up in France, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Czechia among others, involving parties and political leaders from left, centre and right. National delegations from parties across the political spectrum did not try, time after time, to raise these issues at plenaries or other parliamentary jamborees at the EP though they were vocal about them in their national political systems.

The major exception to this was the PN MEPs and they still glory in it. Malta has only six members in the European Parliament, not enough to cover all the Parliament's committees where most of the work is done. Creating distractions from the need for MEPs to focus on where we are present or seeking to downgrade Malta's image where we are present is pathetic in my view and even in terms of generating kudos or political support in Malta, is just counter-productive.  

The Labour Party, including you, has often accused Nationalist exponents, including MEPs, for 'showing a distorted image' about Malta and putting the country in bad light on the international stage. There was one occasion when you described a debate about the rule of Malta as 'an infantile contestation'. Such comments on your part can be interpreted as being an endorsement of the failings in the rule of law in Malta. Do you think that there have been no shortcomings in the rule of law in Malta in the last 10 years?

Independently of what PN exponents have been doing, this country already had the image at the EP and elsewhere of being, under all the governments it has had, a tax haven, due to the operations of the financial services and gaming sectors in our economy. Having that reputation smells bad.

If on top of that, you get repeated plenary motions, driven by PN MEPs using their leverage in the EPP group to blow up minor and transient complaints against the Labour government by PN-leaning media in Malta into major governance items in texts being voted: yes, that amounts to infantile contestation. Given the tax haven reputation, these items are then taken as given by MEPs of almost all political persuasions and their only effect is to put the island in a bad light.

Practically all member states have had, and still have, shortcomings on rule of law issues, discussions about which anyway and in any case, are being taken to hypocritical extremes, when it suits them, by most political groups including the EPP and the S&D. Of course, there have been shortcomings in the rule of law in Malta but I am not short-sighted enough to say this has only happened in the last 10 years. It has also happened in the last 20 years or more, not least in the campaigns that led to Malta becoming a member of the EU, as well as elsewhere in Europe.

So what? Does this justify the relentless efforts to push year in year out, plenary resolutions that continue to portray Malta as a tax haven where laws are there to be twisted and turned? I always felt really strongly about this, still do.

One of the many arguments you make is that there should not be a one-size-fits-all policy in the European Union structures. This is more so for a small island state like Malta. Do you think that enough is being done to protect and assist small countries like Malta?

It is natural that coming from Malta, along with other Maltese MEPs, I made the argument against one-size-fits-all methods. However on the other hand, the EU is not about protecting and assisting small countries. It is about creating a continent-wide political, economic and social unifying structure across nation states that have similar traditions, experiences and lifestyles but are still different, with past histories of bloody wars and genocides. In this enterprise it is obvious that common rules must be set to bind lastingly the different parts of the continent together.

A small island like Malta, at the southern-most periphery of the EU system, is bound to feel that the rules and regulations being created for hundreds of millions of people up to the north of Sweden can be too forgetful of its special situation, covering today a population of some 600,000. You will claim that this goes back to the makku argument. But it is the reality.

Maltese diplomats have told me how repeatedly they find themselves in a bind because while they want to be cooperative in the implementation of extremely important and useful EU programmes (like the Green Deal), they have consistently to plead for exceptions or special treatment when new directives and regulations are being projected. You will say that all member states plead for exemptions when it suits them, which is true. But by our very circumstances, we are placed in the position of having to do this practically right across the board and for much of the time, which is not tenable. Up to now, this problem has been resolved by ensuring that funds flow Malta's way as "compensation", since such flows are minute by continental standards. This approach will not be so helpful when issues like tax harmonisation, qualified majority voting, security and defence come up for review.

In your 10 years as an MEP, do you think you have made a difference? Do you think that bigger countries represented in the EU have a bigger voice or were your thoughts treated as equal?

Beyond the hype, how does one voice make a difference in an assembly of some 700 deputies, where obviously initiatives have to be driven collectively? I could mention my inputs as EP rapporteur or as negotiator for the S&D Group on such laws as for a European system applicable to covered bonds; on Dora, the law that established new cybersecurity systems for all European financial institutions, including banks or the Listing Act meant to simplify the issue of new shares in European capital markets. My voice did make a difference. Would this be intelligible to the "ordinary" Maltese citizen? I doubt it.

Alternatively, I could mention how during the last two years, with others, I helped to stall the passage through the European Parliament of the concept of a European airline kerosene tax as part of the Green Deal. As presented, it would have disproportionately affected badly all flights to Malta. It will have to be dealt with again from scratch during the mandate of the next Parliament.

By my standards, my voice really made the most effective difference during the 2019 election campaign in Malta. Another of those resolutions, prodded forward by you know who, that sought to drag the island's reputation through the mud, was coming fast up the queue for a plenary debate. I met the Parliament's President at that time, Antonio Tajani from the EPP, now Italy's foreign minister, to argue that a plenary debate on the resolution at this stage would be simply an attempt to interfere in Malta's elections. Though he came from the EPP, Tajani saw the point and the debate happened post the 2019 elections.

Do you not think that the appointment of a Maltese MEP, Roberta Metsola, as President of the European Parliament shows that European institutions do want to give importance to the smaller nations? How do you rate her performance?

Frankly, I don't think that Metsola's promotion had anything to do with giving importance to the smaller nations. It happened in two steps. The senior EPP vice president of the Parliament, Mairead Mc Guinness, left the Parliament to become Ireland's appointee on the European Commission when the previous Irish incumbent, who was responsible for agricultural policies, had to resign over a faux pax committed at the height of the Covid pandemic. Metsola was in the right place at the right moment as the EPP would likely appoint a woman to replace Mc Guinness. She played her cards well and was elected by her group.

The second step was when her group again had to elect their nominee for the job of EP President. Under the informal agreement between the four main groups to share it out somehow (usually between the EPP and the S&D) it was going to be the EPP's turn for the Presidency.  The EPP leader, Manfred Weber, was definitely not interested since in 2019 he had been snubbed as Commission President and probably did not like the idea of seeming to have accepted a consolation prize. Again Metsola was in the right place. In the contest within her group for the candidacy to the post of president, competitors like the veteran Austrian MEP Othmar Karas, worthy as he is, surely sounded stodgy and less than compelling. She won that contest very well.

The rest - getting a majority in the Parliament plenary - was achieved by the usual horse trading between the groups. The only thing that could have stopped her would have been the S&D agreeing with the Greens, and possibly Renew, to vote for a compromise Green candidate but the S&D did not want this. As I recall, the fact that Metsola came from one of the smaller countries never entered the equation and at plenary she won handsomely.

As far as her performance goes, she has been excellent at managing the plenary, the best of the four presidents I have seen in action. Not everybody has been convinced by the way she has run the EP bureaucracy, where there have been accusations of favouritism, while the handling of the Qatargate scandal and its aftermath have not been as thorough going as initially promised.

In political terms, naturally I disagree with her choices but that of course does not amount to a "rating". What I disliked, and I was not the only one, was the gung-ho (or call it reckless) and jejune way in which she expressed as President of the Parliament her ideas and choices, especially on foreign affairs and defence issues.

Part 1: The 1981 election and the transition from Mintoff to KMB

Part 2: The 1980s’ bulk-buying system and public sector employment

Part 3: The Church schools battle and the 1987 constitutional amendments

Part 4: The post-1987 election years and the rise to the Labour leadership

Part 5: A new image, the anti-Vat position and the Cittadin Mobil

Part 6: The freezing os Malta's EU application and the VAT-CET changeover

Part 7: The clash with Mintoff and the collapse of the government in 1998 

Part 8: The return to the Opposition benches and the EU referendum

Part 9: Malta's first years as an EU country and the 2008 election

Part 10: Becoming an MEP, Malta's EU membership and the sale of passports

Next week (final part): Alfred Sant's views on general issues