Malta's foreign policy after Mintoff

zyxwv zyxwvuts zyxwvu zy REPORTS AND SURVEYS worth having the MP “on board” as an insurance policy. He might not deliver much but the cost is minimal. The MP is then no more than a talisman. And the MP is often given an entrance (literally or figuratively) to a political world rather more glamorous than that of commerce. Jenny Jeger of GJW has been quoted saying that, “it is extraordinary hov people with the ability to make millions . . . and who can find their way around the City or ruthlessly disembowel an opponent, have bones like jelly when it comes to talking to an MP”. (See Carolyn Faulder, G o o d Housekeeping, March 1984.) Finally, the parliamentary consultant is often in reality another channel to Whitehall, not Westminster. As a courtesy to a member a Minister might well take a complaint more seriously. Alternatively in the long term, links to backbenchers can become links to new Ministers. Are lobbyists value for money? The answer appears to be yes in that the costs are low-whether the activities are acceptable is more difficult. The variation of member links to groups and group links to Parliament make a blanket verdict impossible. Certainly there are parliamentary “mercenaries”. One member was quoted in Private Eye, “I knew that I was packing up after the next election and it was a chance to earn some extra cash.” If complacency does exist about these activities, a couple of characters from the past haunt the scene. One American figure from the turn of the century was Joe Little who made a living providing businessmen with information-when his only sources were hearings and’ the Congressional Record. There is a danger that companies are paying for what would be freely available. If, alternatively, lobbyists can deliver, the question’of fairness crops up. The Lynskey Tribunal in 1949 decided that “contact man” Sydney Stanley who traded on political and administrative acquaintances had crossed the line of acceptable behaviour. It is heads the lobbyists is condemned as useless and tails that he is condemned as unfairly useful. zyxw GRANT JORDAN Dept. of Politics University of Aberdeen References Alderman, G. (1984), Pressure Groups and Government in Great Britain, Longman. Grant, W. & Marsh, D. (1977), The CBI, Hodder & Stoughton. Hanson, A. H. & Walles, M. (1984 ed.), Governing Britain, Fontana. Herring, E. P. (1929), Group Represenfation Before Congress, Brookings Institute. Taylor, P. (1984), The Smoke Ring, Bodley Head. Malta’s foreign policy after Mintoff HALF-WAY through his third .successive term as Prime Minister of Malta, Mr Dom Mintoff announced his resignation in favour of Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, an industrial relations expert and an ex-University of Malta lecturer. Two years ago Dr Mifsud Bonnici was chosen by the Malta Labour Party (MLP) 182 zyxwv MALTA’S FOREIGN POLICY national conference to succeed Mr Mintoff, this decision being subsequently ratified by the General Workers’ Union delegate conference, representing Malta’s largest trade union. Mr Mintoff, whose political career spans more than forty years, almost thirty-five of them as leader of the MLP, effected his departure from the government with almost time-table precision. First indications of his eventual retirement from Maltese politics came about four years ago when he sponsored Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s nomination for the post of Deputy Leader for Party Affairs of the MLP at that year’s national conference. Few however took this to be a sign that Mintoff was preparing to abandon politics and that he was laying the ground for a smooth transition of the party leadership and as events proved for the premiership of the island. Indeed, well into 1984 and two years after Mifsud Bonnici’s choice as his successor, Western journalists were still making claims that Mintoff was seeking to turn Malta into a one-party state. For his part, Mintoff was desperately trying to create the right conditions for handing over the office of Prime Minister to Mifsud Bonnici to give the latter sufficient time to impress his own distinctive style on the government of the island, before the next general elections due in three years time. Dom Mintoff, a Fabian socialist, has often been described as a political maverick but analysed from a Maltese political standpoint, which involves an understanding of the island’s economic, social and geographic factors, his actions can be seen to have been both logical and consistent. For they reflect the fact that the islands of Malta lack any natural resources but contain a population of nearly 330,000 persons. When Mintoff came to power in the 1971 general elections, Malta’s economy was still mainly dependent on income and employment generated from Britain’s military and naval bases and the frequent visits of US naval squadrons. However, the economic structure associated with such an almost exclusive military role had proved, for more than a century, to be inadequate and in the post-war world a handicap for the development of trade and economic relations with North African markets. On the one hand, employment was scarce. Between 1964 (independence year) and 1971, more than one-sixth of the Maltese population migrated in search of better prospects, mainly to Australia and Canada. On the other hand, large areas of the island were under British military and naval control stifling their use for industrial purposes and putting pressures on port facilities. Indeed, even the civil airport formed part of a British military complex and was under the overall control of the Royal Air Force. Not surprisingly, under such circumstances, Malta was seen by Western powers as falling under the jurisdiction of Britain and what political relations Malta had were inevitably with NATO states and Australia. By 1967 it became clear to Mintoff and his Labour Party in opposition that, with the publication of the UK Defence White Paper, which proposed to throw thousands of Maltese employed with the services in the island out of work, the whole political and economic structure of Malta would have to be radically altered. For this reason Mintoff outlined four major goals. First, that economic prosperity depended on exploiting fully those facilities which could be put to such a use, including Malta’s geographic location at the heart of the Mediterranean. Secondly, that Malta should be free to trade and conclude commercial treaties with any state irrespective of political ideology. Thirdly, that in order that trade could be conducted with countries generally hostile to the island’s traditional military role, all foreign military forces present in Malta zy 183 REPORTS AND SURVEYS zyx should be gradually scaled down and finally phased out. Finally, that Malta should pursue a policy of strict neutrality and non-alignment while at the same time seeking international recognition and guarantees for its new status. The new look policy Mintoff and his government set about achieving these aims with a determination that surprised most observers. By March 1972, six months after his election, Mintoff had put up Britain’s and NATO’s payments for military facilities sixfold, took control of the civilian airport and port facilities, and asserted Malta’s independence by expelling Admiral Birendelli, NATO’s Mediterranean commander for claiming that NATO would never relinquish its control of the island. Further, he forced Britain and NATO to agree, in a formal treaty, to vacate the island by March 1979 and that to refrain until then from using their military facilities against any of Malta’s Mediterranean neighbours-echoes of Albania, Suez and the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Next, Mr Mintoff turned his attention to the island’s problems of economic development. With aid from China, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Yugoslavia, he set into motion a vast programme of works designed to modernise old industries and promote new ones. The old naval dockyard was transformed into a highly competitive ship-repairing and -building industry, a national airline was set up, port facilities modernised and available factory space for new industries quadrupled. Through an improved agreement with the EEC, Malta managed to secure a foothold for its exports in Europe, attracting a good number of German industries to the island. Within three years West Germany replaced Britain as Malta’s main trading partner. Furthermore, Mintoff sought to take advantage of Malta’s location between the industralised nations of Europe and the developing markets of North Africa and the Middle East. Between 1972 and 1979 Malta’s growth rate averaged between three and seven per cent a year. The new prosperity associated with this economic growth was complimented by new welfare services and a housing programme that made the Maltese workingclasses among the best housed in Europe. For purposes of stable industrial relations, the government awarded and enforced annual cost-of-living increases in the private sector as well as within its own. On the international scene Mr Mintoff took every opportunity to advertise Malta’s new role as a neutral and non-aligned state. At Helsinki and every subsequent Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) Malta took on itself the role of spokesman for the Mediterranean. Malta’s representatives argued that it was futile to discuss European security and stability while at the same time ignoring the threat posed to world peace by conflicts which had their origin in the Mediterranean. They deplored the exclusion from this political arena of North African Mediterranean states. Almost on their own they fought, sometimes with success, for the inclusion of these states into the process and for Mediterranean issues to be on the agenda. Mintoff went further in demonstrating Malta’s determined status of nonalignment. At every opportunity Malta called for the withdrawal of the two superpowers from the Mediterranean basin and took the lead in trying to bring together other Mediterranean states for the purpose of co-operation at the social, economic and political level. Since 1971 Malta’s non-alignment has been frequently tested. Libya had hoped after the closure of the NATO base to 184 MALTA’S FOREIGN POLICY replace the West with its own influence. It had provided Malta with vital capital and cheap oil, and was riled when Mintoff continued to resist its advances for a military station on the island. In 1979 it forced a Maltese licensed oil exploration vessel to abandon its search for oil in the Maltese-Libyan channel. Mintoff replied by signing a treaty with Italy in which the latter agreed to act as guarantor of Malta’s neutrality and non-alignment. On the diplomatic level Mintoff continued to impress on the Libyans the implications of their action on Maltese-Libyan relations and after a time agreement was reached between the two states to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice. In recent months Malta and Libya have signed a new treaty of friendship and co-operation. In 1981 the Soviet Union opened an embassy in Malta after undertakings by the Moscow government of better trade relations with the island. Even as the talks between the states were in progress, Malta joined other countries in condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since then trade with the Soviet Union has expanded and Soviet merchant ships use on a regular basis Malta’s excellent bunkering facilities. Furthermore the Soviet Union has already declared its intention to place orders for ships to be built at Malta’s newest shipyard. Notwithstanding this, Dom Mintoff on his first ever visit to the Soviet Union in December 1984 and his final parting act, defiantly reasserted Malta’s non-alignment and called for the Mediterranean to be a nuclear-free zone and for the withdrawal from this sea of the hardware of both the superpowers. But Mintoff‘s message was directed as much to the Soviets as to the West. NATO politicians today accept that Malta takes her non-alignment seriously but military chiefs have not forgiven Mr Mintoff for the loss of their Malta base and their lobby has had a disruptive influence on relations between Malta and other Western states. NATO chiefs would have dearly loved to teach Mr Mintoff a lesson but unable to do so they have evidently put pressures on their political counterparts to discourage relations with Malta and using the Western press to discredit Mr Mintoff‘s government. More significantly, anti-Mintoff forces in Europe threw their weight behind the predominantly pro-West opposition party, the Maltese Nationalist Party. During the 1981 general elections, the Nationalist Party was provided with a private television and radio station in Sicily capable of transmitting to Malta. Mintoff retaliated by enacting a bill designated as the Foreign Interference Act 1982. Under the Act, the Maltese government has arrogated to itself powers similar to those enjoyed by the US Government against citizens who receive funds from political organisations abroad. The Act had also the effect of suppressing the Maltese office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Prospects for the future But now that Mr Mintoff has handed over the powers of government to a new man, would it be reasonable to expect a change in the foreign policy of the island? While it is certainly true that Mifsud Bonnici is a man of contrasting temperament to that of Mintoff, it is equally true that the options open to him in this sphere remain virtually the same as those that confronted the latter at the general election of 1971. If Dr Mifsud Bonnici wishes to safeguard Malta’s independence and hard-earned markets, he must continue to steer Malta on a course of strict non-alignment. Even a partial change of policy would alienate zyxw REPORTS AND SURVEYS most of the Middle East states, China and lose the foothold established for Maltese products in the markets of Eastern Europe. It would also undoubtedly plunge the island into political obscurity once again. In recent years Malta has enjoyed a growing status on international bodies, being appointed as rapporteur on various issues. Two years ago Malta’s unflinching non-alignment was rewarded when the island was elected to serve on the UN Security Council. And, with Mintoff‘s retirement, Western military chiefs may now feel more confident of accepting Malta as a neutral and non-aligned state. Their mistrust of his intentions dates back to the 1950s and although Malta’s impeccable record of non-alignment can be safely attributed to Mintoff, Western strategists have never been capable to overcoming their caricature of him as a Nasser or Fidel Castro. However, if relations between Malta and most of the Western European states are to improve, the latter would need to demonstrate to Dr Mifsud Bonnici their readiness to resolve some of the outstanding problems between the two sides. For example, Britain would need to aid new development projects in Malta by agreeing to help remove from Malta’s major ports wartime wrecks and highly dangerous explosives. Britain has so far consistently refused to do this. Italy for its part would have to honour its agreement with Malta to eliminate the massive trade imbalance that exists between the two countries to the disadvantage of Malta. It would also have to give effect to promises of technical and military aid made in 1979 in a formal treaty with the island. As far as the EEC is concerned, Dr Mifsud Bonnici would expect that his country’s demands for a new agreement which would give Malta a special relationship with the Common Market be re-explored and sympathetically treated. In other words, Dr Mifsud Bonnici would not be prepared to consider Western overtures for better relations unless they are also accompanied by practical gestures of goodwill. Finally, Dr Mifsud Bonnici may feel more confident since the opposition Nationalist Party is increasingly coming round to Malta’s policy of nonalignment. During the 1984 Budget debate, which was televised, Dr Vincent Tabone, shadow spokesman on foreign affairs declared that they too did not wish to see Malta revert to the status of a military base. However the Nationalist Party has yet to suppress a powerful group of extreme right-wingers within its parliamentary party who desire to bring Malta back into the jurisdiction of NATO. However, this group is outside the general consensus that for Malta independence and non-alignment are synonymous. GODFREY A . PIROTTA University of Malta (lecturer in Public Policy) Sweden Introduces Employee Ownership IN 1982, a London-based reporter from an American magazine sent a telex to his editor, asking if he should travel to Stockholm to cover the forthcoming elections. His editor replied “Don’t bother. Sweden now considered a normal country.” The Social Democratic Party had lost power in 1976, after 44 years of almost continuous rule. The four different non-socialist coalitions that governed 186