Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1542182
13 ANALYSIS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 DECEMBER 2025 lays bare Malta's political exceptionalism Maltese law, the voting patterns highlight how Malta's political parties remain out of step with mainstream abortion was approved. (Photo: Laurie Dieffembacq/EP) For Malta's Nationalist Party, this pre‑ sents a long‑term strategic dilemma. Persistently excluding pro‑choice po‑ sitions may preserve internal cohesion in the short term, but it increasingly isolates the party within its own Eu‑ ropean family and limits its ability to reflect the diversity of views now nor‑ malised across the EPP. It also stands as a warning for those within the PN who on the social media refer to those supporting abortion as "murderers", an accusation which is increasingly appli‑ cable to many of their centre‑right allies in Europe. Moreover, the celebration of Maltese exceptionalism can create a Eu‑ rosceptic backlash in what was Malta's most pro‑European party. Socialists celebrated, Labour abstained or voted against If the EPP vote highlighted plural‑ ism on the centre‑right, the picture within the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group was even more striking. Alex Agius Saliba was one of only two S&D MEPs to vote against the resolu‑ tion, while Thomas Bajada and Daniel Attard were the only two to abstain. All other socialist MEPs supported the proposal, making the PL MEPs' vote a clear anomaly within its political family. Moreover, the socialist group not only voted for the resolution but celebrated the outcome, even describing it as a his‑ toric victory. Labour's ambiguous stance was rein‑ forced by the abstention Daniel Attard and Thomas Bajada. While abstention does not amount to support, it sug‑ gests that Labour's internal position on abortion may be in flux. In explaining his abstention, Bajada said he has "con‑ sistently" abstained on the subject of abortion and framed his vote as a call for national dialogue, arguing that "dis‑ cussions over abortion in Malta should take place without political agendas or polarisation and with deep respect to‑ wards social and ethical realities." He also said he is "completely against the criminalisation of Maltese women" who have undergone an abortion. Abstention, in this context, can be read as a sign of caution in a party where the issue is no longer taboo but where internal debate is still restrained by fear of a backlash from its more con‑ servative supporters. At the same time, the political weight of Agius Saliba's op‑ position should not be understated. As deputy leader of the Labour Party and a figure mentioned as a possible future leadership contender, his vote signals that resistance to pro‑choice positions remains entrenched even within the party's leadership. Moreover, the absence of a clear pro‑ choice voice like that of Cyrus Enger‑ er who supported the Voice for Choice initiative when still an MEP, confirms that the issue is still a taboo in a par‑ ty which describes itself as progressive. The social media reaction by support‑ ers railing against the European Union for pressuring Malta on this issue, also exposes another fault‑line in the PL be‑ tween its increasingly rogue Euroscep‑ tic and conservative wing and an in‑ creasingly frustrated social liberal wing. On the same page as the hard right? The most unified opposition to the resolution came from the far‑right and hard‑right groups, where resistance to abortion access remains an ideological marker. But even here, however, there were notable exceptions. Four MEPs from Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bar‑ della's National Rally broke ranks to support the resolution while a majority abstained, reflecting the party's growing need to accommodate public opinion in France, where access to abortion enjoys broad popular support and has recent‑ ly been constitutionally entrenched. It is to be noted that even Marine Le Pen voted for this constitutional entrench‑ ment. Support for the resolution was unan‑ imous among the Greens and Renew Europe who are aligned with Malta's two third parties. Momentum—aligned with Renew Europe—gives its members freedom of choice on this issue, but so far, no pro‑choice voices have emerged within the party. Although hesitant, ADPD—aligned with the Greens—ap‑ pears to be moving in a pro‑choice di‑ rection. What changes in Malta Ultimately, the EP vote's significance for Malta is symbolic rather than legal. It does not change national law, nor does it override domestic competence. What it does expose is a persistent dem‑ ocratic gap—the near‑absence of ex‑ plicit pro‑choice representation within Malta's major political parties, despite such views being widely accepted across almost all European party families. But what remains striking is that while pro‑choice voices exist in all parties, and especially so in the Labour Par‑ ty, presently no elected party official is keen on expressing this position in public. Moreover, the PN is still aller‑ gic to any internal debate on this issue, because to do so it has to acknowledge that the pro‑choice position is a legiti‑ mate one. Activists from the My Voice My Choice campaign standing outside the European Commission building to present the petition with more than 1 million signatures calling for access to abortion care late in 2024. (Photo: My Voice My Choice/Instagram)