Waqa l-ass: Karmenu Vella thinks we should change our agreement with the EU
In yesterday’s L-Orizzont (translated from Maltese):
Karmenu Vella: Malta’s agreement with the EU can be changed
Labour MP Karmenu Vella said that we have to bear in mind the fact that Malta’s agreement with the European Union is not a contract that can’t ever be changed, but one that can be changed according to the circumstances of the moment, and so some terms and conditions can be changed.
The issue is not Malta’s membership of the European Union, but how much we are benefiting from it. We can’t say that because we are in the European Union then everything is fine.
Karmenu Vella spoke of burden-sharing and Malta’s economic situation. Looking at the economy in the European Union, Vella said that it is impossible that the 27 member states are all going through the same thing together.
In terms of Monetary Union and Economic Union, he said, the 27 member states of the European Union are divided into two groups of 17 and 10. He mentioned the great uncertainty in which there are member states which can help more than others.
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This is exactly why Labour cannot be trusted with policy. They create so much confusion and uncertainty.
At one point we have the Dear Leader talking about “l-aqwa fl-Ewropa.”
Now, here comes the one-who-should-have-been-writing-the-electoral-manifesto-but-who-has-not-delivered, and he states that Labour will revise the agreements with the EU.
Does he plan to revise the agreement to a Partnership – L-Ahjar Ghazla?
Shall we spend another 5 to 10 years of negotiations?
Shall we have another referendum?
What does the roadmap of the “Moviment iffukat” say about this?
One further proof that Malta’s future with the EU will be in serious jeopardy should Labour win next election.
It is all bottled up and some git like Karmenu Vella cannot keep it in.
To all those people who are preaching that we need a change, I tell them that you just don’t know what is in store for us.
The only consolation for me is that I do not have to say mea culpa.
This is scary. The PN should make an issue out of this statement. Is the PL suggesting we change our EU membership to a Partnership or any other status the PL may dream of?
People who voted for EU membership should take note.
PL in government is already worrying, let alone having them mess around with our membership, or God forbid, having PL govern without supervision from the EU.
Dear Mr Vella, you THINK that we can change the agreement. But what about the other 26 members? Do THEY think that it can be changed?
“Malta’s agreement with the European Union is not a contract that can’t ever be changed, but one that can be changed according to the circumstances of the moment, and so some terms and conditions can be changed.”
On what planet exactly?
I’m sure even the bigger countries would have liked this to be the case for them once in a while, but have they said so?
No, when change needed to happen, the entire treaty was painstakingly amended.
It’s (partly) this sort of arrogance by the MLP in demanding a ‘special relationship’ with the EU which delayed Malta’s membership in the first place. It just can’t be done. Old habits die hard, I guess.
At last we are now hearing someone talking sense.
Of course it should be possible to be able to change some clauses, if these are not any longer in the national interest.
Before rushing out and calling me Facist, Mussolinjan etc. just remember that even, in our case, some clauses in our own constitution can be amended even changed, this of course with the established procedures. So why not with the E.U. agreement?
[Daphne – What a false comparison that is, Silvio. Where is the other party in our Constitution?]
Silvio, I do not care if you are a fascist or a Mussolinjan.
But you are a socialist whose conceptual understanding of matters is severly limited and yet you expect to impose on others your views, and that is what worries me.
The Constitution is very different from an international treaty.
The Constitution can be changed by a vote approved by two thirds of MPs in the House.
An international treaty can only be modified if all parties to it approve the changes. How could you mix these two concepts?
Exactly what I said.
AN international treaty etc etc.
So after all it CAN be changed.
“Vella said that it is impossible that the 27 member states are all going through the same thing together.” – Of course not ghidlu lill-Guy.
Spain – 25 percent unemployment and rising, Ireland went through it all, Italy too, Portugal on the verge of, Cyprus needed a bailout, Greece, let’s not even go there and open page 1, and Malta, tajjeb u hazin, we’re still moving on, no mass uneployments, no bailouts needed, and good governance at the helm (iva par idejn sodi, ghall inqas ta’ Gonzi).
I’m not blinded by the 20,000 new jobs gimmick, (I’ve not been convinced yet), and I am involved in business which is not THAT good, and yes, there’s less money and less economic activity especially in the construction sector that I’m involved in, imma hallina GUY, I’d prefer this scenario than you in government, any day.
Exactly. Those idiots who state that they will not vote for PN because “we are fed up with this government” miserably fail to convincingly explain why PL would offer anything better than the past crappy PL governments.
Sure, there are loads of anecdotes regarding incompetence and nepotism under the current administration. However the plural of ANECDOTE is not DATA – and the data clearly shows that the country has improved incredibly under PN.
If people are “fed up with corruption and incompetence”, they should simply be selective about the PN candidates (suffice to mention a couple of the new ones, a human rights lawyer and an eminent cardiologist). Voting for PL, which is evidently way more incompetent and corrupt, would be a moronic decision.
Aha – paving the way to opt out of the EU when the Labour Party is in government ?
Diga beda jberraq.
Bezquha fl-ahhar.
‘..not Malta’s membership of the European Union, but how much we are benefiting from it….’
Essentially, and it can’t mean anything else, if we don’t benefit, we’re out.
Labour should be challenged, when it won’t be possible to achieve what it believes to be ‘the satisfactory terms and conditions’, what it’s plan is..
Loud and clear, before this election; no ifs, buts or whatever Joseph wishes. Unless it’s another academic argument.
Is this one of the conditions in their latest agreement, signed by Joseph, with China?
Ooops…This comment was addressed to Jozef.
As you rightly say, “Here we go again!”
Malta’s case is unique. It is the EU which has to adapt itself to what benefits Malta.
If all 27 member states adopt the same attitude what sort of an animal would the EU become?
The European Community became the European Union, and it is bound to go on changing, but not on the lines that Karmenu Vella, who is echoing the old Labour Party mantra in international relations, is suggesting.
His comments lead to the obvious questions.
What changes has he got in mind?
And what do the other members of the EU think about these changes?
Are we going to an election which such fundamental questions unanswered?
After all these years, deep down the MLP still holds a grudge against the PN for getting us into the EU.
The apex of this grudge emerged through the vote against Richard Cachia Caruana.
Blimey, wow, 2 in 1, you both put my mind at rest AND cured my insomnia in the time it took me to rea,,,,,,,,,, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Daphne, MLP never made it a secret that they are anti EU.
What has been a secret is that they plan to pull Malta out of the EU once Muscat gets to be the PM in 2013.
The PN media must know about Labour’s crafty plan that has already been formulated yet the PN is curiously being silent on this issue. A massive anti- EU campaign is planned from day one and within a year Labour will manage to turn public opinion against the EU membership.
MLP will be relentless.in their rhetoric, but for the Maltese families will be too late.
Another wasted generation thanks to MLP.
Some months ago, during a Saturday morning radio programme, Joseph Muscat said that Karmenu Vella was “the best Minister of Finance Malta ever had.”
The only problem is that Karmenu Vella NEVER served as Minister of Finance.
Apparently, Karmenu Vella is now believing Joseph Muscat.
[Daphne – I imagine that what he actually said was “the best minister of finance Malta NEVER had.” It’s a figure of speech.]
Irid li jinbidel il-ftehim, imm ma jridx li jinbidlu l-ministri tal-Labour. Fi ftit xhur ohra jaf ikollna l-istess ministri li kellna fin-96-98 – uhud ilhom hemm anki minn qabel l-87 (Il-Guy, Leo, Debono Grech, Coleiro, AST, Michael Farrugia). Mhux ta’ b’ xejn li Varist ihobb jikkwota mil-Gattopardo: jinbidel kollox biex ma jinbidel xejn.
Already planning on how to mess up everything. Dark days ahead.
What’s a ‘Monitory Union’ (sic)? Probably it’s an organisation which monitors and impedes freedom of speech, the free press, and so on.
Oh no, my bad, that’s a ‘Malta Labour Party’.
The dinosaur’s ramblings don’t surprise me.
Is it “waqa’ l-ghazz” or “waqa’ l-ass”? I have the impression that the latter is a reference to some card game.
Oh yeah we are really in for it, if he is already talking in this manner whilst in opposition and considering the financial climate we are in. Damn it, SHUT UP.
Karmenu Vella is probably going to go down in history as the man who caused the Labour Party to lose the unloseable election and helping the MLP snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Let’s hope I am right.
I suppose Labour feels that the election is in the bag already.
Such is the stuff our future government stalwarts are made of. Joseph should gently take him aside and ask him to please keep his mouth shut. Or maybe not.
Tal-biki.
We do not have a ‘ftehim’ with the EU. We JOINED the Union eight years ago and have since (Dec. 2009) become EU citizens. There’s no à la carte, remember? The only other option is WITHDRAWAL (similar to the Soviet republics’ right to leave the USSR).
There is nothing we can ‘change’. We’re not even governed by our own constitution, since EU treaties and laws have primacy over national constitutions.
We couldn’t opt out of any of the treaties we’ve signed and ratified since the accession treaty, and we won’t be opting out of any treaty in the future.
Likewise, we had no choice over the euro. But instead of postponing the execution of the Maltese lira, we hurriedly buried it alive and celebrated the demise of our monetary and fiscal freedom. (It is truly an honour for a nation to have to borrow its own currency, especially fiat money that can be created out of thin air by overlords sitting so high their toenails are mistaken for banks.)
The fiscal treaty will soon be another addition. The ESM treaty, yet another. Our government was one of the first to sign these new treaties – and hardly a word about their content, their effects, what was negotiated by our sitting duck… Nada! No one seems to read them, let alone analyse them – not even the very MPs who ratify them while twitting nonsense to their fans. All they get are Ivan Camilleri’s cut-&-paste jobs from Bruxelles.
So what can we change, Karmenu?
Perhaps our finance minister could hijack the ESM governing board and force an exemption for Malta from having to borrow more money to finance insolvent countries through the permanent bailout fund?
Or better still, why not have our six MEPs perform a Maltese zombie dance in the European Parliament to prove they’re very much alive… No, not Sajmint, we’ll exclude the budding EU apparatchik from the zombie dance…
Only parochial zombies are unaware of the direction the EU has long taken; why the eurozone crisis is deteriorating so fast; how nation states are being forced to collapse through perpetual indebtedness for the benefit of an EU-ECB power grab, ‘saving the euro’ in the process for the slaves to hail them as saviours.
Here’s Commissioner Barnier’s explanation for dummies: http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/9689.8589.0.0/europe/european-federation-will-form-by-2016-says-commissioner
And here is Commissioner Rehn’s take: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2012/august/rehn-seeks-to-assuage-us-doubts-/74996.aspx
If Karmenu hasn’t yet woken up to the fact that the EU, spearheaded by the eurozone, is being federalised to the point of no return, then he doesn’t only deserve his great leader, he’s earned him.
Here’s an update for those who deserve to know: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/financial-decline-europe-continues
Mela insejt li partnership rebar, thanks to NO2EU?
Kev why are you so against a federal Europe? Logic dictates that the world of the future will be even more federalised.
Technology is making the world smaller; distance and time to cover distance keep populations insular. Once these boundaries are broken integration of cultures takes place and the development of the human race moves forward a step.
Yor/malta, the term ‘federal’ is in itself a euphemism. What we have here is a pseudo-democratic, centralised state in the making, governed by unelected bureaucrats at the Commission.
As for the ‘global village’ cliche, please spare me the time. The 1970s are long gone. Today we should know better. Sadly, you know too much that’s not so. I’ll not spoil your bliss.
Kevin, I’d rather be governed by faceless bureaucrats from Brussels than by your elected wife and her buddies. That’s my honest answer.
Now, can you ask Sharon to phone someone at Labour Party headquarters and find out if they will be withdrawing Malta from the EU once they’re in power?
Never mind the rest of their political programme. At least we deserve to know this.
Kevvy, Malta entered the EU and the Eurozone with its eyes wide open.
You imply that Malta entered with ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. Not true.
You and your ilk will always put doubt into a decision well past. Live with it Kevvy. You and wifey are doing very nicely, thank you very much.
In your case, Purdie, it’s more likely ‘Brain Run Dry’.
You don’t just know too much that isn’t so, you know nothing much about what is.
You appear to be repeating yourself, Kevvy. You employed a similar inane retort to you/malta. Running out of ideas? Do you stutter also?
Perhaps this was another academic exercise like Alex Sceberras Trigona’s article in The Times. Perhaps there will be more of them.
This is the promised earthquake that will take the maltese nation to the stone age.
@Homer.
The more you call persons like me,Idiots, for not going to vote makes us more determined.
You talk of being selective in choosing who to vote for, Bullshit,according to what has been repeated over and over again,during the Debono saga,the votes belong to the party not the individual candidates’
To say the least I expect ,the party, to be more selective in the choice of their candidates apart from us.
You mention that the country has made lots of progress. God forbid that in twenty years we did not do any progress, but at what cost?
Do you expect us to vote for somebody who hardly knew we existed for the last four years and now expects us to welcome them in ou kitchen? some chance.
The P.N will be reaping what they sowed, and I will doing my part to see this happen, even knowing that I will be labeled as “Idiot” by persons of your kind.
Why should I be afraid of having a Labour Govt?
It’s those who have been party to corruption and nepotism etc. who should worry.
… and the (all too transparent) mask falls.
Homer.
You are perfectly right. It’s time to stand up and be counted.
What we are here talking about is a No Vote to corruption and arrogance.
And there I was, thinking that ‘to be counted’ requires one to vote.
You talk about a ‘No vote to/for’ – but this does not exist. When one does not vote, that’s just it – one is simply not favouring one party over any other. Not voting cannot be construed as a ‘vote against corruption’ or a ‘vote against arrogance’.
@ dust
If as you say the “No vote “does not exist” why worry?
Maybe all those who are considering “abstaining” should take your advise and go all the way,if that will make you happier.
Are you always so helpful to your party?
Have you tried offering your services to the P.N electoral gurus?
Abstainig is and has always been, considered as a vote of no confidence,whether you like it or not.
[Daphne – Wrong. Not voting is by definition not an act but the absence of action. And everywhere in the civilised world it is not considered ‘a vote of no confidence’ (in what and how, if you are not voting?) but a serious symptom of social disengagement.]
I am sure Karmenu Vella watched last night’s interview on HARDtalk.
He must have learnt a thing or two about the EU.
He needs to and very badly.
As long as they get the votes.
N. Agius
Today, 15:53
PL jien nivvotalkom bil qalb jekk tghidu li ha tkun fil prijorita taghkom u tghidulna x’ ser taghmlu … fil- futur ghad nishtu l- politici li hallew dan kollu jigri ! Xi kultant nghid imma tghid kumbinazzjoni li bdejna nbatu b din il problema wara li sirna membri fl EU.
This comment was posted on times.com under the report:
PL says immigration remains a concern
I love the way you continue to expose these people. Heaven forbid they should win the election.