Maltese European Union membership referendum, 2003
On March 8, 2003, a referendum was held in Malta on accession to the European Union. It was adopted by a narrow majority of 53.6 %.
History
On 5 December 1970 Malta joined an association agreement with the European Economic Community (EEC). On July 16, 1990, Malta officially applied for admission to the EEC. The request was a positive response by the appropriate EEC (or 1993 EC) bodies and from the July 1995 negotiations between the EC and Malta to the inclusion of the country began to prepare. These negotiations were broken off by the new Come in Malta to power Labour government in October 1996 again. The Maltese Parliament elections in 1998 were won by the conservative Nationalist Party, which started the negotiations on the EU accession of the country again. At the EU summit in Copenhagen on 12 and 13 December 2002, negotiations for the enlargement of the European Union ( EU) have been completed and to Malta and other nine countries in East Central Europe, North East and Southern Europe invitation was made to join the EU. The Maltese government under the Conservatives Edward Fenech Adami announced a referendum on the issue of EU accession, the non- binding, however, should be. This referendum was held on March 8, 2003. Before the referendum, a sharp election campaign took place, in which the Conservatives favored the EU accession and the opposition Labor Party to join the EU. The voters asked question was:
" Do you agree that Malta within the framework of EU enlargement on 1 May 2004, a Member State of the European Union? "
Results
The turnout was more than 90% by far the highest of all referenda that were held in the EU candidate countries in 2003. At the same time was the approval rate by far the lowest: only slightly more than half of the voters approved the accession of Malta to the EU. The EU accession issue was accordingly a great campaign issue in the parliamentary elections in April 2003. This election was won by the pro-EU Conservative by absolute majority. On 1 May 2004 Malta joined the European Union.