Labour Party Deputy Leader Alex Agius Saliba and Labour CEO Leonid McKay launched the Labour Party Freedom Day programme of events.

This year, Malta shall be commemorating 46 years from this occasion.

The programme of activities shall commence on Friday, 21 March, at Mtarfa, and come to an end on the 30th of March with the traditional event at the Freedom Day monument in Birgu. The theme for this year's events is 'Ħelsien: il-gid ghall-Maltin'.

Leonid McKay said that the Centre for Interpretation in Mtarfa will serve as a backdrop for the discussion that will take place on the economic change that has taken place in the country since Freedom Day to the present day, which will be organized on 23 March with the participation of Ministers Clyde Caruana, Silvio Schembri and PL MP Cressida Galea.

Two days earlier, the same Centre for Interpretation in Mtarfa shall host the inauguration of an exhibition with original material commemorating Freedom Day, as well as free guided tours of the Clock Tower in Mtarfa

On Sunday, March 23, a documentary film will be shown in the hall of the Ċentru Nazzjonali Laburista in Hamrun which will be transformed into a cinema that will be set up especially for this occasion.

During the week of Monday 24 and Friday 28 March, a daily radio programme will be broadcast whilst a series of short interviews with people who lived the historic moment of Freedom Day will be broadcast on the ONE, the Labour Party said.

The culmination of the activities will be reached on Sunday, 30 March, in the evening, next to the Freedom Monument in Birgu, where the traditional Freedom Day ceremony will take place. This event shall be addressed by Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Robert Abela.

McKay said that "these remarkable achievements were not only historic but also signified a turning point in our country in various areas." It was the time when the Maltese took matters into their own hands and changed the course of Malta's history: the economy and social consciousness and addressed the prejudices that many people had suffered from, he said.

PL Deputy Leader Alex Agius Saliba said that Freedom Day is intrinsically linked to the history and identity of the Labour Party when Malta ceased to be a British military base. He said that then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff wanted that the country no longer be dependant on the military economy and that Mintoff had an economic and social vision for Malta's future. Agius Saliba invited people to participate in these activities.