Maltese Independence
Britain took Malta in 1800 and held it as a naval station governing the central Mediterranean; the island was besieged and heavily bombed in the Second World War, for which it was collectively awarded the George Cross. In the 1950s the Maltese Labour Party under Dom Mintoff pursued not independence but integration — full representation in the Westminster parliament with British wage parity — an option Britain entertained and then let lapse as the strategic value of the base declined and the fiscal cost became clear. With integration foreclosed, independence followed under the Nationalist Party in 1964, with a defence agreement and British financial assistance for a transitional decade. Mintoff, returning to power in 1971, renegotiated the terms sharply upward and set a departure date; the last British forces left in 1979. The dockyard economy was progressively replaced by manufacturing, tourism and financial services, and Malta joined the European Union in 2004.
- Year: 1964 CE
- Category: Political
