24 October 2005
Tony Blair met with Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi in Downing Street today for talks.
The meeting was held a one month ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, which will be attended by both leaders.
Opening statements
Tony Blair:
Welcome here Lawrence, it is good to see you. I would just like to say a couple of things by way of opening remarks and then we will take a question each. The first is to say how pleased I am at the current state of the UK-Malta relationship. We are strong partners, not just in the international community generally, but obviously specifically now in the European Union and of course in the Commonwealth. And we were able to have a conversation about the forthcoming European Summit where we will discuss the overall direction Europe has to take, and the prospects then for ensuring within that overall framework we are able to make a go of getting the financing deal that Europe needs, and I know its Member States want.
And obviously we were able to discuss the up-coming summit in Malta of the Commonwealth Heads of Government, and that is a very important occasion and I am really delighted that Malta has agreed to host it. I know it places quite a burden on any country to do this because of the numbers of Heads of Government involved, but everyone is looking very much forward to coming to Malta, and as I say our bilateral relationship is very strong and Lawrence and I have got a good working relationship, and I look forward to working with you both in the European summits that we have got, and most particularly in the Commonwealth Summit, and good luck in the hosting of it.
Lawrence Gonzi:
Thank you very much. Well just a few words on my part. I would like to thank Prime Minister Blair for the opportunity for us to meet this morning. It has been another opportunity, as the Prime Minister has said, to consolidate the extremely strong relationship that exists between Malta and the United Kingdom, a relationship that goes back a long number of years, and which has been consolidated recently with the membership of Malta and the European Union, where we work very closely with the United Kingdom on a number of issues which are of common concern. We want Europe to move forward, we want Europe to respond to globalisation, we want to see a modernised Europe, we want to see a Europe that is able to win the challenges that we are facing today. And Malta, the smallest member of the European Union, is prepared to contribute to try and achieve these aims.
Certainly the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting towards the end of November is going to be another unique opportunity where we can try to bridge our role to bring different countries from different continents together, large and small countries, in order to send a strong political message under the theme "Networking for Development", which is what we want to see. We want to see the economies of the world moving forward, the eradication of poverty, and I think this is a target which fits in very nicely with the initiatives that the UK government has taken over the past months, which I salute because they are extremely important initiatives.
So thank you so much for having the opportunity to be here Prime Minister Blair.
Question and answer session
Question:
Prime Minister, can I just ask on education, people might say you have had 8 years to get the system right.
Tony Blair:
Can I just say, I am going to give the speech on it later, and at the moment I am not going to do any more than give the speech, if you see what I mean.
Question:
You are not going to give any words at all about this?
Tony Blair:
Because I am going to give you lots of words later. You can ask me something else if you want.
Question:
On the finance deal, you have talked about getting a finance deal, how confident are you then about getting the finance deal, since otherwise your Presidency may go wasted?
Tony Blair:
Well it is obviously going to be a big challenge to try to get the financing deal, people want to get it, but as we were discussing over breakfast, what is important is that the financing deal is seen as part of a bigger picture - where we are trying to move Europe forward in the direction of reform and change which Europe needs to modernise its economy, because we face enormous competitive challenges, from China, from India, from America, from Japan. The European economy has got to be able to grasp the opportunities of globalisation and ward off its insecurities, and it can only do that if it is reforming. So the finance deal in a sense has to be part of that bigger picture if we are going to get it, but I will work hard to try and get it.
Question:
Mr Blair, I would like to ask you a question about the problem of illegal immigration, which is a big problem in many countries of the Mediterranean, especially Malta. Do you believe that this problem will be brought up on the agenda of the CHOGM summit in Malta this November? And has the Maltese Prime Minister expressed his satisfaction at the British Presidency’s work in dealing with illegal immigration?
Tony Blair:
Well we did have a conversation about this, and as the Prime Minister made clear, this is a major issue for Malta, and indeed for other countries in the European Union. It is quite useful probably for my own media and public here to hear it is a major problem in Malta, it is a problem all over the European Union, indeed I would go further and say all over the world at the moment. And what is happening is that as part of globalisation you are getting these vast numbers of both economic migrants and genuine refugees who perfectly naturally want to search for a better life, but that then ends up as a major problem for the host country that takes them in. And so what we were discussing is how we get a more rational system in place so that you know countries aren’t expected to do more than they can.
And I personally think that at some point we have got to go back internationally and look at the rules governing this process and see how they can be made more consistent with the modern world in which we are living and working, rather than rules that are frankly formulated for half a century ago.
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