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Editorial
It was a historic moment, which will have long lasting reverberations around Europe and the World. A splendid slide show accompanied by pyrotechnics and a display of co-ordinated beams of light heralded Malta’s entry into Europe. Membership was anointed under a clear sky accompanied by an ‘opera’ extolling ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ amidst the unmistakable contours of the Maltese bastions in the Mediterranean’s most beautiful Harbour.
But there was no word of the billion spectators who were supposed to have a glimpse of Malta’s spectacular event; CNN, BBC World, Euronews and other international stations had their focus on the Eastern European countries and Malta hardly featured let alone the midnight event. So heavy was the turnout at Valletta that until 2am the roads around Valletta were jam-packed with revellers in cars.
Not all Maltese applauded the celebrations with the same enthusiasm, some who attended were disappointed with access to a vantage point.
On Friday Super One’s top news ignored the event totally preferring to cite what the Labour leader had to say about employment. As thousands of Maltese thronged Valletta and its shoreline, Labour hard core supporters attended a rally at the Labour HQ waving red flags.
If one was looking for change on 1 May it was not to be found at Mile End.
As in all aspects of our long history, getting here has not been easy. Of all the accession countries Malta had the highest turnout in any of the referenda organised in the EU, and the narrowest margin of victory for the ‘Yes’ vote.
Malta is now officially a European Union member and though the smallest member state in a conglomeration of 25, it retains a representation which many observers argue is over-representative for a nation that also managed to convince the Commission to accept Maltese as an official language.
For 400,000 citizens we remain one of the best represented of all countries with as much veto power as the largest member, Germany.
With membership come the obligations and the advantages. The most evident of obligations was to be seen yesterday at Maghtab, which officially seized to be a burning dump. What successive governments chose to ignore for years, suddenly became a problem that needed to be solved, today and not tomorrow. There will be disadvantages - the most pressing are price hikes in staple foods and the most obscure the price hike for Cuban cigars.
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