Robert Abela became PM on the 13th of January 2020 after winning the Labour Party leadership contest that followed Joseph Muscat’s resignation. At the time, Malta was navigating a difficult transition. Public trust in institutions was strained, international scrutiny was intense, and political polarisation was high. Abela’s pitch was deliberately measured at the time where he presented himself as a steady administrator rather than a disruptive reformer, someone who understood

When Prime Minister Robert Abela stands at the United Nations General Assembly tonight to formally recognise the State of Palestine, he will be drawing a line under nearly five decades of consistent Maltese policy. For Malta, this is not a sudden shift but the logical end point of a long trajectory that began in the 1970s, when the island had only just become a republic.