During Wednesday's plenary session, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana expressed his worries that EU Member States' commitments to invest in arms in support of Ukraine may lead to more political fragility across the continent.

Speaking about the conflict in the Eastern European region, Minister Caruana remarked that through the EU's near unanimous decision to invest in military defence, the European Union has begun a transformation for the coming years that may have serious ripple effects.

He remarked that several differing opinions are currently being discussed on how the EU will be able to finance its defence forces. These discussions include heavily debated options which, at the moment, are far from reaching a consensus.

Caruana noted that to fund these arms, EU countries are contemplating on having common bonds and for costs to be shared by all Member States, or for existing financial packages to be recast towards this intent. Both of these examples face opposition from several countries, he said, with the latter coming with worries that the original intentions requiring financing will be left unfunded.

The Finance Minister described that amongst this financial repackaging, some talks are being held to redirect agricultural packages towards defence spending, though this proposal is also facing several disagreements.

Caruana commented that "the money needs to come from somewhere" and expressed his fears that with virtually all EU countries willing to spend bucketloads on military defence and incur the debts involved, this strategic direction "either means harsher taxes or less welfare."

"I fear that as everyone rushes to buy arms, extreme [political] forces from Europe's left and right will rise," Minister Caruana said.

He described that a country's power derives from its economic and political power, though noted that changes in economic power is what has fuelled the rises and falls of nations historically.

Caruana observed that if Europe truly wants to have a chance to compete with Eastern and Western powers, then it must work to become stronger economically, rather than invest in arms.

"No military arms will be good if Europe is not strong economically," he said.

According to the Minister for Finance, the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic teach us that in times of high volatility and uncertainty, countries must be responsible in the leadership over their finances. Hence, he said that Malta managed to withstand the exogenous shocks endured during the pandemic by being economically durable.

Caruana described that the EU is not run as a dictatorship, but rather, has a unique political system that is dependent on the several elected political parties from each of its Member States. Henceforth, he believes that the weakening of national governments as a result of this investment may, in turn, ironically, weaken the EU as a whole.

"We will see even more fragile governments in the EU - which may be the opposite of what is required," Caruana ascertained.

During this discussion, the Maltese Cabinet member discussed that Malta voted in favour of diverting EU funds towards military defence out of respect for the missions of other sovereign nations within the European bloc.

"We must understand what a number of countries want to accomplish. We aren't going to stop them in this regard," Caruana said.

As such, he told the House that out of respect for these other EU countries, Malta conceded its position so that other countries may plan on how they will boost defence efforts without them worrying about fiscal constraints.

He described that this was caveated through Malta's demand that other nations, in return, will respect its constitutional neutrality, and thus, not force the smallest country within the EU bloc to participate in matters it doesn't wish to enter.

"If this country wants to invest in its security, it will do so because it itself wants to, and not because other EU Member States are trying to force us to, to the point that we might break our constitutional neutrality," Caruana added.

In this light, he said that after articulating its position, a "very mature" discussion followed wherein other Member States, including some neighbouring Russia, respected Malta's stance out of respect that Malta was not going to stop them.

Additionally, Caruana said that the Member States can freely discuss having "joint collective efforts" in this direction until the words "joint" and "collective" begin referring to carve-outs and opt-outs.

Providing peace of mind to Maltese and Gozitan citizens, Minister Caruana commented that "Malta is not going to commit money to military expenses on an EU level."