Small states are Europe’s stress test, Cassola tells Renew leaders
Momentum Chairperson Arnold Cassola is in Brussels today for the Renew Europe Leaders’ Summit, which brings together party leaders from the European Democratic Party (EDP) and ALDE to set out their priorities on the road to the 2029 European elections.
At the Party Leaders’ Assembly, Cassola argued that Europe’s centre will only win back voters by getting closer to them in their everyday concerns, and by giving people a real say in policy.
“In two-party systems like Malta’s, the centre is often squeezed and ignored. We will not beat populists by copying them, and we do not want to. We beat them by being closer to people,” Cassola said. “Power cuts, rents, traffic and overdevelopment are governance failures that our citizens feel at home. That is how our fight against corruption stops being abstract and is translated into concrete daily reality.”
Cassola also called on Renew’s political family to keep small states at the heart of its 2029 platform. Momentum supports enlargement and a Union that can act, but reform must not cost the smallest members their voice. Islands and peripheries are the first to feel Europe’s gaps, from energy links and transport to the cost of living.
In his address to Renew party leaders, Cassola said that “small states are the stress test for any European promise. If the 2029 platform works for Malta, it will work for every corner of Europe”.
He proposed three safeguards on the table toward a single European foreign policy in an effort to make the European Union more effective and agile to tackle today’s global challenges.
First, he proposed a reinforced majority for foreign policy decision making, with 72% of the member states, representing 65% of the population, able to decide a way forward, as the Treaty already allows in other areas.
Second, a neutrality guarantee with teeth. Neutrality is not indifference, and it is not silence, but countries like Malta must be able to stand aside from any military dimension without blocking the others.
Thirdly, Cassola said the EU should start where it already agrees: sanctioning human rights abusers and defending international law, including the International Criminal Court.
“These are the values of Article 2 of our own Treaty. If we cannot defend them by majority, we will never agree on anything harder,” he said .
In line with this he proposed that the European Democrats bring together its members from small and neutral states to turn these safeguards into a joint proposal before the treaty debate opens.
Momentum, a member of the EDP since 2025, aims to bring a reformist, pro-European voice from Malta into the European Parliament in 2029.
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