Independence is the birth of a nation

To my mind Independence is the birth of a nation. The fact that Malta joined the EU as a sovereign state is also thanks to Independence. After Independence everything followed. We joined the UN and many other international organisations in quick succession.

Cyprus got its independence from Britain in 1960, four years before Malta and joined the EU with Malta in 2004. Yet Cyprus although it is a fully sovereign state, it still hosts British military bases. The EU had no qualms with accepting Cyprus as a full EU member state with British forces still occupying part of the island. The fact that Malta decided to cut all ties with Britain in terms of defence in 1974 did not make Malta more or less independent. As the Cyprus case shows it wouldn’t have been a problem for the EU to accept Malta as an EU Member State with a defence agreement with Britain still in place.

Why am I mentioning the EU, you might ask? Well, perhaps because I am most familiar with this organisation. But the EU, like the United Nations is a gauge, in my view, as how independent states really are. To be more precise, it is the membership to these international organisations that tells you a great deal about whether a state is an independent state or not.

Take Scotland for example. Arguably a seizable minority of Scottish want out of the United Kingdom and indeed their First Minister Nicola Sturgeon comes from the Independence Movement. She, like her predecessor Alex Salmond have companied hard for Independence and yet they have not reached their goal because they lost the independence referendum recently. In the Brexit referendum which was held not long after, the Scottish voted to stay in the EU and now that it is quite clear that the UK is leaving, the Scots want to remain in the EU. And yet they cannot, because they are not an Independent Nation. So Scotland and Catalonia (in Spain) cannot join the EU before they obtain their independence first.

The Independence is the first step to join international organisation like the United Nations, OECD, the EU and many others. Without Independence you can’t function properly as a Member States of these international organisations. Independence is indeed fundamental for a fully functioning sovereign state and it is quite simply the most important date of a nation’s calendar.

As the PN leader puts it, quite often, it is the birthday of a nation. Quite frankly, we celebrate the day of our birth, we do not celebrate the day of our holy communion or the day we got our driving licence.

I think we haven’t yet taken a decision in this because there is so much political baggage behind this and I fully understand why it took so many years. But I also think that now is the time to show some leadership on the issue and take the sensible decision, putting Independence in its rightful place in history.

We can do this because the Maltese and Gozitan are now mature enough to understand that this is after all also a question of self respect as a nation. In their hearts of hearts, they know that this decision is long overdue.

The fact that Malta decided to cut all ties with Britain in terms of defence in 1974 did not make Malta more or less independent.