What happened yesterday at the European Council was very much expected and had even been forecast for a long time. We have also written about the risks posed by the Russian shadow fleet at Hurd’s Bank, and the Prime Minister was informed by various foreign and local sources of this risk.
Malta is taking action by enabling international monitoring and intelligence sharing. But the Prime Minister has avoided this reality for far too long and avoided taking decisive action at the expense of letting risks run high with regard to the Russian shadow fleet.
Malta was never in this situation but this is not an excuse for indecisiveness and neither an excuse for ignorance.
Action is finally being planned to be taken, but this is coming late and the Labour government has a difficulty in explaining what is actually happening after years of exploiting the “neutrality” clause in our constitution for partisan and political purposes.
Yesterday at the European Council, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg literally asked the European Council to provide military and naval support to help countries like Malta keep off the Russian shadow fleet from our shores. This should have been done already long time ago when it was evident that Russia was using Hurd’s Bank as an area for their illicit trading activities.
Malta closed its eyes assuming that it will experience no negative impacts – safe in its bubble of delusions. Malta has even blindly defending its commercial interests with regard to the Russian shadow fleet, ignoring the political ramifications of such a position.
Now we are living the example that neutrality doesn’t work in today’s world and we are effectively, not neutral at all. At the first instance of needing military support, we have gone to the Europeans. Clearly, we are under the political and military umbrella of Europe. Malta is also actively making use of the services of France and Spain for its defence interests.
Malta is not militarily neutral: Malta is under the European umbrella and this military umbrella exists in its formal setting at the European Council. On a bilateral basis, Malta has a security alliance with Italy and France, and now also with Spain. Lacking defence and military assets, Malta is being compelled to seek the military help and support of its European allies to fill its defence and security gaps. This is not neutrality and we should be honest about it.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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