Source/Credit:THE-TIMES-Thursday, November 10, 2011
Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said today that Malta has nothing to fear from Libya as an “Islamic democracy”.
Addressing a meeting of MEUSAC – the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee – Dr Borg referred to comments by the new Libyan leadership that the future of Libya would be based on moderate Sharia law.
He said Malta should be happy that three of its North Africa neighbours – Tunisia, Libya and Egypt – would have some form of democracy, but he cautioned that at this stage, one should not expect the fully-fledged democracies which the West was used too.
However, there was nothing wrong with having an Islamic democracy, in the same way as there was Christian democracy. What was important was that basic rights were observed.
Dr Borg said that he could not see people who shed their blood for freedom allowing a return of dictatorship.
Malta, Dr Borg said, had good historic links with all three countries and it intended to exploit them as much as possible.
Apart from trade exchanges, Dr Borg said priority areas in relations between the Maltese and Libyan governments included oil exploration, migration, fishing rights and pending payments to Maltese companies.