Malta and European Union law

Abstract

The accession of Malta to the European Union followed an idiosyncratic political process that witnessed various twists and turns. 1 Before joining the EU, Malta had been associated with the European Community for more than 30 years. An association agreement was signed in 1970 and entered into force on 1 April 1971. It provided for an ambitious plan of creating a customs union over a ten-year period (divided into two phases); however, due to political circumstances, this objective was never achieved under the association framework. A formal application for membership in the European Communities was submitted on 16 July 1990. Avis of the European Commission followed in 1993. For several reasons - mainly economic - the opinion was negative. As explained in Chapter 1 of this volume, the membership application was frozen in 1996 as a result of changing domestic political climate and reactivated following parliamentary elections in 1998. A subsequent positive opinion of the European Commission permitted Malta to join the second group of countries negotiating the terms of accession and - following the negotiations- allowed it to become part of the "big bang" enlargement of 2004. It is a rule of thumb that membership in the European Union has far-reaching consequences for a national legal order of any Member State. Malta is no exception in this respect. Bearing this in mind, the author decided to devote this chapter to legal aspects of Maltese rapprochement to the European Union. The starting point is the Maltese Constitution, which contains very modest rules on membership in the European Union. This is followed by an analysis of the European Union Act 2003, which - being modeled on the UK's European Communities Act 1972 - opened the Maltese legal order to EU law. The next section of this chapter looks at the practice of Maltese courts, including their reluctance to employ the preliminary ruling procedure.