[3] Sant served as second, and then first secretary at the Mission of Malta to the European Communities in Brussels between 1970 and 1975 when he resigned to undertake full-time studies in the USA.

The Labour Party won the October 1996 elections under Sant who campaigned for the removal of the Value Added Tax (VAT) that had been introduced in 1995 as an unpopular but required step towards EU accession.

Enjoying only a one-seat majority in Parliament, the Government was vulnerable to threats from former Prime Minister and Labour leader Dom Mintoff.

Things came to a head in the summer of 1998 when a row with Mintoff over a coastal concession to a private company resulted in the Government being defeated on the motion transferring the land.

[2] In view of the lack of consensus on the interpretation of the result, Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami asked the President to dissolve the Parliament and call for fresh elections.

He did, however, stand for election for Party leader again which was contested by two other candidates for the post, John Attard Montalto and Angelo Farrugia.

The Labour Party, spearheaded by Sant, presented a new programme Pjan għal bidu ġdid (Plan for a new beginning) and called for Bżonn ta' Bidla (The need for a Change) after the 20 years (save for his brief stint from 1996 to 1998) of Nationalist government.

The electoral programme contained references to overhauls in the educational system (which proved to be extremely controversial), reduction of an electricity surcharge by half, and tax breaks on overtime work.

Sant announced that he would stand as a Labour Party candidate in the 2014 European Parliament election, despite his previous opposition to EU membership for Malta.

Sant also contributed regularly to the General Workers' Union's Sunday Maltese-language newspaper It-Torċa until March 2008.