Malta wants to be a bastion of peace and a strong voice for the permanent cessation of fighting, Prime Minister Robert Abela said as he spoke during a Labour Party discussion on economic freedom.

Abela said that every euro spent on armaments goes directly out of the country, “it is not an investment,” he remarked. He continued that no foreigner can come and command the government on how the people’s money should be spent. “Only we decide that, and those are the guarantees I got when I went to Brussels.”

He commented that in today’s times, “The story of this small country should serve as a lesson for all nations around us.” Abela said that when Malta was a military economy, the people were poor, but that “the wealth we have seen has been nonstop” ever since the country became non-aligned. “Childcare, education, and health for free… If you go to university, we give you a stipend…. Ask the European youth how much debt they start their careers with because they had to pay to graduate.”

The Prime Minister continued that if Malta were to join NATO, it would be expected to spend at least €450 million on defence yearly. He said that in the past year, the government has spent that amount of money on education, sport, youth, research, innovation, culture, and more.

He questioned what is considered a more solid investment between the two, and continued that he is therefore convinced that the people understand why he made sure to get guarantees in writing that Malta will not be loaded with expenses that it does not need. “We know what we need to do with our money,” he commented, as he added that Malta as a fortification is something of the past, and that the government wants it to stay in the past.

Abela stated that Freedom Day, March 31st, is a very important day in the history of the country. He said that for the first time, after a long period of the country serving as a military base and with its prosperity depending solely on wars, the basis of Malta’s prosperity became peace.

He said that there was a time when Malta’s ports were not lined with cruise liners, but with destroyers. He continued that Malta’s airport was not receiving passenger plans, but rather planes of war. Furthermore, he added that more than a third of workers in Malta were directly dependent on the military expenditure of the British government.

With that in mind, the Prime Minister said that there was a dream at the time for Malta to grow its economy, but he remarked that there were many foreign economists who spoke of how it would not be possible. Abela said there were several reports with negative predictions about how a free Malta would fare, as he commented that he suspects at times that such reports were done with the thought of scaring Maltese leaders into not following through with their plan for Malta to no longer be a NATO base.

“I believe that Dom Mintoff’s courageous decision not to be afraid of the challenge to achieve economic freedom was the most important decision a political leader has ever made in our country,” Abela stated.

He continued that at the time, there were many saying that Malta could not refuse to pick a side. “That if we did not serve the interests of NATO, we would be serving the interests of the Warsaw Pact… They said that neutrality meant assisting the communists and the Soviets… Who knows how many times Mintoff declared that Malta was for the Maltese?”

Abela remarked that not only did Mintoff love the country, but he also believed in it and had strong faith in its people and their capabilities. Abela added that it is clear today that freedom from dependence on military expenditure has resulted in Malta having a strong economy.

The Prime Minister said that in contrast with predictions of a free Malta needing to emigrate its workers, Malta has now become a country where there are not enough workers. He continued that the situation has developed from Malta being the second worst country in terms of unemployment to now being the second best, as he added that Malta’s economy went from being dependent on the defence sector to being one of the most diversified economies in the world.

Abela said that the merit for this result is not only of the government led by him, but that it is the merit of those who worked before so that the country’s economic engine could be built. He spoke of the plans and development of Mintoff and Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici as well as Joseph Muscat’s economic roadmap. “These strategic plans, you could say, are the basis of our country’s economic prosperity.”

Prime Minister Abela said that the sacrosanct lesson he learned from the leadership of past labour governments is that the priority should be the finances of families and business, not that of the government. He added that to confront a global economic crisis, one would want the people to be financially strong.

Speaking at the same event, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said that the industrial development which took other countries 200 hundred years to do was managed within the span of 20 years in Malta.

Caruana remarked that the PL has managed to give Malta the platform for the country to be where it is now.

The Finance Minister said that if there was something in the 70s and the 80s which has led the country to what it has become, it was prudence. He continued that if a family is prudent in the way it handles its finances, then that family will not have problems, as he remarked that is the same for a country.

He continued that if the government makes a mistake in its leadership of the economic policy, then everyone suffers. He stated that it is important to remain prudent in the leadership of the country’s finances.

Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said that for economic freedom, one needs factors such as a government capable of controlling its economic policies.

Schembri said that economic freedom, especially in the globalised world of today, is not something one can say they achieved and so they stop. He continued that economic freedom is ideal, but that one needs to keep working for it every day, and that to work for it, one needs to make sure they are working as part of a plan and vision.

He said that Vision 2050 will be presented to the Cabinet in the coming weeks, and added that it will be brought to public consultation once it is approved “because we have arrived at a time for economic transformation”.

PL MP Cressida Galea said that Malta’s resilience when compared to other countries has been made clear. She remarked that this is a result of decisions made by the government in the face of external shocks.

She said that it is important that the government keeps making decisions which bring further investment into Malta.