Cables reveal PN’s way out from Labour’s ‘unconditional withdrawal’ from PfP

With no public pronouncement ever made on his intention to rejoin PfP, and possibly no electoral mandate, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi even informed former US ambassador Molly Bordonaro that he would join PfP if he won the election as early as 31 January 2008 – two months before the general elections.

One of the revealing aspects of the cables is the key role played by Malta’s permanent representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana in pushing for Malta’s entry to NATO’s Partnership for Peace.

As early as 2004 he complained of Malta’s inability to attend EU defence meetings where NATO classified information is discussed, which meant that Maltese officials had to leave the room during such discussions: “something that has been a source of embarrassment for the government since EU accession”, former US ambassador Molly Bordonaro notes in one cable.

But the Maltese government faced two major hurdles both home and away. The first was that popular sentiment on joining the PfP was split right down the middle after Labour prime minister Alfred Sant withdrew Malta’s PfP participation in 1996 – his first major foreign policy decision.

The second dealt with Turkey’s actions blocking both Malta and Cyprus from joining the NATO-EU fora: specifically as retaliation for the isolation of Turkish Cypriots after the rejection of the Annan plan for reunification by Greek Cypriots.

Malta was suddenly caught in the crossfire because Turkey was demanding that both countries become PfP members as well as sign a NATO security agreement – the latter option facing domestic opposition in both Cyprus and Malta.

“Malta officials estimate popular sentiment runs 50/50 over Malta rejoining NATO PfP. Malta’s neutrality clause is also an issue that enjoys strong support… given the current stalemate over the NATO security agreement and political challenges to rejoin PfP, the question arose whether Malta had withdrawn completely from PfP in 1996, or simply ended its active participation and its Individual Partner Program,” Bordonaro wrote in November 2004.

The Cachia Caruana solution

On 9 November 2004, Bordonaro met Cachia Caruana, who told the Americans that he was advocating that Malta should declare it had “simply ceased active participation” in PfP, but not that it had formally withdrawn from the agreements, making it possible to say that the prior PfP agreement ‘remained in force’.

This was in direct contrast to the “unconditional withdrawal” of the Labour government in 1996. As former foreign minister George Vella told ambassador Douglas Kmiec in November 2009, Labour had executed a “complete unconditional withdrawal” from PfP, having himself approved the letter to NATO.

He went on to tell Kmiec that it would have been “improper for NATO to have characterised the action as a suspension” and that the government had no basis to “reactivate” Malta’s PfP membership.

This raises the question of whether Vella was right when he told Kmiec that the government had circumvented Malta’s Treaties Act, and that joining PfP again required a parliamentary resolution. But left rudderless after their defeat in the March 2008 elections with Sant’s resignation, Labour sat silent as Gonzi and Tonio Borg rushed to Brussels the day after victory to sign the PfP agreement.

Cachia Caruana’s strategy gave Gonzi a unilateral approach that meant he did not need the House’s approval – but most importantly, bypass the Turkish stumbling block of signing a NATO security agreement.

Cachia Caruana’s disappointment

Cachia Caruana also expressed his disappointment with the Americans that Malta did not have some “sponsor” or show of political support when it makes its case to rejoin PfP to the NATO international staff legal experts. “Malta is proposing a procedural bandaid that meets its own political constraints. Solving its problem alone will do nothing unless a path for Cypriot participation opens as well,” wrote the US deputy chief of mission to the EU, P. Michael McKinley in one cable from Brussels.

Cachia Caruana wanted to secure NATO acceptance before a vote on Turkish EU membership on 17 December. “He made it clear to us that in the absence of support for Malta’s course of action, he will recommend that the idea be shelved,” McKinley noted.

On this Cachia Caruana may have certainly been right: after Turkey gained official status as entering accession negotiations with the EU, its position on Cyprus’s concessions to help Turkish Cypriots became even more obstinate. The ‘Cyprus hardliners’ in the government wanted more EU aid for northern Cyprus, and were now even more embittered after Austria and France said they would hold a referendum on Turkey’s accession.

Gonzi’s unilateral move

It can be surmised from the cables that Gonzi never intended making any public pronouncement on his intentions to ‘reactivate’ the PfP membership, let alone informing the House.

On 31 January 2008, he informed ambassador Molly Bordonaro that Malta would rejoin PfP if the Nationalists win the elections in March 2008. Bordonaro noted that Labour leader Alfred Sant remained steadfast against PfP: “After having to reverse stands on major foreign policy questions like Malta’s joining the EU and the Eurozone, Sant specifically mentioned opposition to PfP in an otherwise vague foreign policy paper issued by the MLP in 2007.”

Sant had also indicated he would like to see a reduction in the visits by US navy ships, Bordonaro noted, branding the former Labour leader “erratic” for having first supported the Malta-US ship-boarding agreement in 2007, “only to reject it as elections approached”.

Gonzi’s election victory was welcomed by the Americans as a “continuation of the excellent and productive working relationship” between the two countries. Nine days later on 17 March, foreign minister Tonio Borg sent a letter to the NATO secretary-general requesting Malta’s PfP membership to be reactivated.

A media backlash ensued in the following days, questioning the stealthy way in which the PfP agreement had been resurrected. “The decision has been hardly criticised by the media,” Bordonaro noted. “In large part because of the sudden roll-out. The Opposition’s criticism went further: in addition to being incensed at the lack of consultation, MLP officials are claiming the decision violated the neutrality clause in Malta’s constitution…”

Labour’s shadow minister for foreign affairs Leo Brincat told the media that he himself had been lobbied by a senior ‘non-EU’ diplomat to get Labour to reconsider its position on PfP. Later Bordonaro phoned him to clarify, to which Brincat referred to three separate occasions where the PfP membership had been broached.

Bordonaro told Brincat that the US government had not exerted any pressure on Malta, and a recently concluded double-taxation agreement had no weight on the PfP decision.

National interest

Lawrence Gonzi has defended his decision to reactivate the PfP programme as “one such opportunity in the national interest”.

“It allowed Malta to participate fully in all EU discussions, together with the other EU neutral Member States, Austria, Ireland, Finland and Sweden, with equal access to all information, including that originating from NATO,” he told MaltaToday yesterday.

Cyprus continues to be denied access to important EU documents because its not part of the PfP programme.

Gonzi says the Libyan conflict has confirmed that effective EU-NATO cooperation is essential in today’s world. “Moreover, PfP is an excellent opportunity for the Armed Forces of Malta. Sharing experiences from participation in training for peacekeeping and related activities strengthens the capability and readiness of the AFM to contribute to operations under the authority of the United Nations or the OSCE that Malta, as a member of both organisations, has an interest in supporting.”