7th Plenary Session of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean
12th – 13th October, 2012
Malta
Opening Address by the Hon. Michael Frendo,
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Parliament of Malta
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all, a sincere welcome to you all to my country, Malta, and to this 7th Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean.
That the Mediterranean is central to Malta’s vision and mission as a State is further
illustrated not only by its commitment to this august Assembly but also by the fact that only
last weekend, Malta also hosted the Second 5+5 Summit of Heads of State and
Government, last held for the first time in Tunisia in 2003. This was the first 5+5 Summit in
the aftermath of the Arab Spring, with the distinguished participation of the Presidents of the Republic of France, Mauritania and Tunisia, the President of the General National Congress of Libya, and the Prime Ministers of Algeria, Italy, Morocco, Portugal and Spain, as well as President Barroso from the European Commission, EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle, the Secretaries-General of the Arab Maghreb Union and of the Union for the Mediterranean, and Ambassador Omnia Taha from the League of Arab States.
Our sea is multifaceted and multicoloured. Perhaps no one caught better the changing hues of the realities of the Mediterranean and its littoral States than the Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh who once said:
“The Mediterranean has the colour of mackerel, changeable I mean.
You don’t always know if it is green or violet, you can’t even say it’s
blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on
a tint of rose or grey.”
This Middle Sea, the Blue, this White Sea as it is called by different cultures which belong to it or which have participated in its history, links three continents and three of the major
religions in a mosaic of cultures, languages, history and peoples. Its contradictions, diversity, and tensions have not prevented it from developing a homogeneity which springs from the shared sea, from shared trade and commerce, shared historical experiences and shared visions for the future. It is on these that we have to build the work of our Assembly while remaining forever vigilant that in the past it has been a space for war, conflict and clashes of civilizations.
We are entrusted in rendering resilient the fragile structures of peace and prosperity, of
tolerance and understanding, of mutual respect and cooperation. As elsewhere, but more so in the Mediterranean, peace and cooperation, understanding and cooperation do not come easy and without our serious, concerned and determined effort to make the Mediterranean a sea of peace, stability and democracy respecting the will of the people in full respect for minorities and diverse views and world vision.
The Mediterranean remains a region facing a myriad of challenges: the tumultuous Middle
East Peace Process, the appalling situation in Syria, the road to democratic transition in the countries of the 2011 Arab Spring people revolutions, the challenge to find a modus vivendi between religion and its traditions, the secular State and fundamental human rights.
Additionally we face. the rising spectre of terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa effecting our
region, the scourge of human trafficking and the tragedy of illegal immigration, sustainable
development and the environment, demographic imbalances and diminishing fish stocks in our Sea. This is to mention the more salient issues which we continue to face in this Sea
which carried with it no only the responsibilities of this particular space but which very often
represents the key to world peace.
Facing this kaleidoscope of issues and perceptions, Malta continues to play a significantly
geostrategic role in the Mediterranean. This was once more illustrated most recently during the dynamic upheavals of the Arab Spring including the humanitarian crises and exodus that ensued, assisting, serving as a safe haven, providing logistical support for food and medicine, being indeed pivotal to the developments around it. Malta, and the Parliaemnt of Malta, remain committed to provide its experience and knowledge, as a small State with no hidden agenda, as a State that underwent the experience of colonialism and a State that managed to successfully find its own, occasionally turbulent, way to democracy and human rights, to the success of the Arab Spring, politically, constitutionally, socially and economically.
We should also feel the need to express our solidarity and our commitment, in full respect of sovereignty and national characteristics, to offer our brotherly sense of togetherness with our neighbours to ensure that the most recent revolutions of the Mediterranean have a
successful outcome for the peoples who risked all to achieve this transition.
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Peace, security and stability in Europe and in the Mediterranean are intrinsically and
inextricably interlinked. From the very beginning in the Helsinki process in 1975 – which led to the setting up of the CSCE (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe) –
countries like Malta strongly underscored the principle of indivisibility of security and
vehemently held that there cannot be security in Europe without security in the
Mediterranean.
This process has come a long way from the IPU-CSCM conferences held in Malaga, Valletta and in Marseille in 1992, 1995 and 2000 respectively. The Mediterranean dimension (later dubbed the CSCM – Conference on Security and Co-operation in the Mediterranean),
established at the Malaga meeting, has been the centre of attention of Malta and its
parliament for a very long time. To further galvanise the importance of this dimension and its commitment towards the region, Malta hosted four CSCE/OSCE seminars on the
Mediterranean in 1979, 1993, 1998, and most recently in October 2010.
In 2000, in Marseille, member-states had urged that “concurrent action should continue to be taken to establish an inter-parliamentary cooperation structure as advocated in the Final Document of the Second Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Co-operation in the Mediterranean, with a view to creating, in the long run, a Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean” and “to establish an inter-parliamentary structure as advocated in the 1995 Valletta document.”
The establishment of this esteemed Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean in 2006 in Jordan was a true victory for the skill and perseverance of parliamentary diplomacy. .
It is our honour to host the Secretariat of this Assembly in Malta at the prestigious Spinola
Palace soon to undergo major restoration works returning it to its original spendour. In this
regard, the Parliament of Malta bears the annual rent for the seat of the Secretariat of this
august Assembly with pleasure and commitment. Placing the Secretariat in Malta, a
Mediterranean State that culturally straddles and embraces the Mediterranean’s diversity, a European State speaking an Arabic based language, was a natural ending to Malta’s full, often pioneering, commitment, through the IPU, to the idea for the setting up of an
institutional mechanism for the Mediterranean which saw the transformation in 2006 of the
CSCM to PAM: from a Forum to an Assembly. .
This is the second time Malta is hosting the plenary session, the first time having been in
2007. As President of the Maltese Parliament, last year I made the commitment, accepted
and endorsed by this Assembly in Palermo, for Malta to regularly host this event every
fourth year. In this context, as it has done over the years, Malta will continue to extend its
hospitality and facilities, with a view to ensure that the PAM can continue to promote the
creation of the best political, social, economic and cultural environment for the fellow citizens of the Member States.
My sincere congratulations to PAM which has managed, over a relatively short period in
operation, to establish itself as a principal actor in parliamentary diplomacy assigned
specifically to the Mediterranean region, comforted by the guaranteed and continued support of all its member parliaments. Since the Assembly meeting held in Malta in 2007, several Mediterranean partner countries acceded to membership of PAM. We look forward seeing all littoral countries of the Mediterranean as active members.
The Charter of the Mediterranean, unanimously approved by PAM members in Monaco in
2009, considers the Middle East issue as an area of priority, reflected also in the
establishment of an ad hoc Committee. In this regard, the Parliament of Malta contributes
through the rapporteur of this Committee – the Honourable George Vella . In this regard, the UN Conference on the question of Palestine on the advancing Peace Process, held in Malta in 2008, and co-organised by PAM, had provided an excellent opportunity for the exchange of views and produced a number of fresh ideas on the state of the Peace Process. It encouraged a constructive dialogue towards a political climate conducive to the resumption of the peace negotiations on permanent status issues, exploring the modalities for bridging gaps, building trust and promoting a comprehensive, just and lasting solution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, supported by the role of parliamentarians and inter-parliamentary organisations.
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It is my view that we should be considering a Mediterranean integration architecture based
on the concept of concentric circles in which the sub-regional fits in with the regional. In this
context we should be looking for better interlinking between PAM and the 5+5 Speakers
Conference which, albeit, has not met for some time; between PAM and the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean, and between PAM and any other sub-regional parliamentary initiatives which may be developing in the East of the Mediterranean or elsewhere. In a concept of concentric circles it is all important to keep PAM as the Parliamentary Assembly of all and of only the Mediterranean at the centre of this architecture. In this way, we can all work to harmonise our resources and – in the spirit of the theory of concentric circles – to complement each other for the increased benefit of the Mediterranean peoples as a whole.
Mr President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Malta is an avid supporter of parliamentary diplomacy. As I mentioned in a recent keynote
speech given in Dubrovnik at the Central European Initiative Diplomatic Forum,
Parliamentary diplomacy is not new to history. An early example would be the case when
the Roman Senate, on the request of the Roman Generals, played a role in “suing for peace and then sanctioning war with Philip V of Macedon after the failure of the Treaty of Phoenice (205 B.C.)”.
In more recent times, in south east Europe, when reconciliation in the Balkans still appeared as just a glimpse on the horizon, parliamentarians from former Yugoslav republics had accepted to make a first step and to convene in Cetinje. The Cetinje Parliamentary Forum remains alive to this very day, and represents an important form of encouragement and promotion of parliamentary dialogue between the countries of the region.Parliamentary diplomacy is a living tool; it is a true-to-life activity which parliamentarians can exercise with more flexibility, perhaps even more unshackled, than can diplomatic agents engaged in traditional state-to-state diplomacy. PAM, and its Parliaments should continue to weave more pro-actively parliamentary diplomacy into the everyday work of their respective chambers. Parliamentary diplomacy reaches those realms of open discourse and cultural interchange that often traditional state diplomacy is unable to reach. It must therefore serve as part of a toolbox of pre-emptive dialogue in the onerous function of developing deep and meaningful, bilateral and multilateral diplomatic relations, addressing issues within a space devoid of prejudice and misunderstanding and occupied instead by a spirit of goodwill, openness and understanding. This is a primary mission for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Malta and its Parliament shall continue to support this mission with renewed vigour and enthusiasm seeking at all times to give a truly meaningful contribution to the continued success of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean.
Michael Frendo MP
Speaker
Parlament ta’ Malta