OPENING ADDRESS BY THE HON. DR. JOE BORG, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AT THE MEETING AT MINISTERIAL LEVEL – ACCESSION CONFERENCE WITH MALTA

I would like first of all to thank the Swedish Presidency assisted by the Council Secretariat and I would also like to thank the Commission for their continued support and assistance with regard to Malta's accession negotiations. By way of my opening remarks of a general political nature, I would like to underline three specific aspects:

Firstly, we have continued to progress well in negotiations; so much so that of the twenty nine substantive chapters, only two will, after today, be left to be opened; and as of today, we will have provisionally closed sixteen chapters.

In my second intervention later on, I will be going in some further detail on this matter.

Secondly, we now need to tackle some very sensitive aspects of our negotiations. It is essential that flexibility is exercised in negotiations so that favourable consideration is given to justified requests.

This is essential to ensure that Maltese public opinion be maintained in favour of Malta's accession, so that the final negotiated package that is presented to the Maltese public in the referendum is one that they will overwhelmingly support.

Finally, it is also essential that greater care be taken of public opinion, especially in view of what has just happened in Ireland. In this regard, the Gothenburg summit ought to be an opportunity for clearer and more specific terminology to be used both with regard to the timeframe for closure of negotiations, as well as with regard to the date of accession itself. Wording on the lines that the applicants with whom negotiations would have been concluded in time will participate in the next European Parliament elections as EU members would be most welcome at this stage of our accession negotiations.

Thank you.