16 - 22 December 1999

Europe's door is open

Last week's European Union summit in Helsinki was indeed historic for a number of reasons. It was historic for both Malta and Europe because a number of key decisions were taken regarding enlargement, EU institutional reform and a common European security policy. There is no doubt that a new chapter has now begun in European history and that Europe will change for the better over the next few years.

As far as Malta is concerned the Helsinki summit gave us exactly what we were hoping for. The summit gave the go-ahead for accession negotiations to begin with Malta and five other east European countries, namely Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania. Finally, nine years after Malta first applied for European Union membership, we now have a firm commitment from the EU over the start of negotiations. Naturally, had the previous Labour government not frozen Malta's EU application in 1996, we would have started accession negotiations in 1998 along with Cyprus, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and Slovenia. Although a number of years have been wasted as a result of this freeze, the fact that we are now back on track towards membership is very positive indeed and a great credit to the government which managed to convince the EU to open negotiations just only a year after Malta reactivated its membership application.

Although the first six applicant countries began their accession negotiations almost two years ago, there is no reason to believe that Malta would not be able to catch up with these applicants in the negotiating process. The Helsinki summit made it clear that the concept of the "fast-track" no longer exists and that each country is to be judged on its own merit. The presidency conclusions at Helsinki stated: "The candidate States are participating in the accession process on an equal footing... In the negotiations, each candidate State will be judged on its own merits. This principle will apply both to the opening of the various negotiating chapters and to the conduct of the negotiations... Candidate States which have now been brought into the negotiating process will have the possibility to catch up within a reasonable period of time with those already in negotiations if they have made sufficient progress in their preparations. Progress in negotiations must go hand in hand with progress in incorporating the acquis into legislation and actually implementing and enforcing it."

We now have to play our cards well, think carefully about how we intend to adopt the acquis communitaire and which parts of the acquis will require a derogation or a transition period. The government must also make public its plans for its negotiating team and clarify its position over Malta's chief negotiator. It must also improve its dialogue with all sectors of Maltese society, in particular with the business sector and trade unions. The government needs the open support of these two sectors in order to win the referendum on EU membership.

There is also the problem of the lack of consensus over Malta's EU bid. While consensus is not a prerequisite for EU membership, it obviously certainly helps. However, no consensus existed in Greece, Spain or Britain when these countries joined the EU but such a consensus, at least over membership, is now in place. There is no reason to believe that consensus will eventually not come about in Malta. On the other hand the EU would like to have some sort of guarantee that Malta's referendum result will be respected and the Malta Labour Party is duty bound to clarify its position over this.

The Helsinki summit also came to an agreement over the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference by December 2000 under the French presidency. Furthermore the conclusions stated: "After ratification of the results of that Conference the Union should be in a position to welcome new member States from the end of 2002 as soon as they have demonstrated their ability to assume the obligations of membership and once the negotiating process has been successfully completed."

The European Union has made a clear commitment towards becoming a truly pan-European organisation. The door is now open to Malta. Let us take this once-in-a-lifetime historic opportunity to find our rightful place in the European family of nations. The ball is in our court.

The Helsinki summit was also historic because it declared Turkey to be a candidate country, and this will have a major bearing on Turkey's future development and prosperity, as well as regional stability. It was also historic because it agreed to set up, by 2003, and on a voluntary basis, the ability to deploy within 60 days and sustain for at least a year, forces of up to 60,000 persons capable of responding to a crisis in Europe. The foundation of a new European security set-up has been laid at Helsinki.