Alternattiva Demokratika and EU membership

Abstract

Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) was founded in 1989 as the first and only green political party in Malta. Its presence in the Maltese political scene has, however, mostly been characterised by its marginal position within national politics In fact, the green party's activism prior and during the 2003 EU referendum was largely ignored, having been overcome by the political discourse of the two main political parties; the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party. When the party first stood for the national elections in 1992 it obtained 1.69% of first preference votes. In subsequent elections, however, the party's share of the votes declined. This was the trend until the 2004 EP Elections, where AD obtained 9.3% of first count votes, narrowly failing to elect an MEP. This affected the party's standing in Maltese politics, where it was increasingly being referred to as the third main political party. Nonetheless, many times, AD is thought of as an 'insignificant' political party which contributes very little to the political sphere in Malta. However, this dissertation aims at uncovering what AD's actual influence and participation was during Malta's accession process, and how it was subsequently affected by EU membership. The information about AD found in this dissertation was mostly gathered through elite interviews and archival sources, since little information exists about this particular area of research. However, this was also one of the reasons for the choice ofthis particular research project. The findings discussed in the last chapter of this dissertation show that AD's contribution to the EU accession process was of some importance, mainly because they campaigned with the Nationalist Party during the EU referendum campaign and also because they lobbied in Brussels during the negotiation process. Following accession, the party seems to have experience EU-related change, primarily in the area of party-government relations and in patterns of party competition.