|
Evarist Bartolo takes a leaf out of Animal Farm and points an accusing finger at a government that has not acted against discrimination in the EU against Maltese nationals
I have written to EU Commissioner for Education and Culture Viviane Reding to take action against governments of EU member states including Britain and Holland for discriminating against students from new member states, including Malta, by charging them as if they were non-EU students for the rest of this academic year.
Last February I lodged a formal complaint with the EU Ombudsman’s office and asked him to look into the case of Maltese students following undergraduate and postgraduate courses at British and Dutch universities that are refusing to adjust their tuition fees following Malta’s joining the EU on May 1, 2004.
The EU Ombudsman advised me to take the complaint to the European Commission as this has to do with a case brought against the government of member states and not against an EU institution.
In the current academic year at the University of Malta there are 72 students from the other 24 countries that together with Malta have formed the European Union from 1 May 2004. Government has informed parliament that from the very first day of membership students from the other 24 EU countries following courses at the University of Malta are to be treated equally like Maltese university students.
But Maltese undergraduate and postgraduate students have been told that for the rest of this academic year (from the beginning of May to the end of June) they will not be treated like EU students and so will continue to be charged higher tuition fees.
The Maltese government has accepted this discrimination without batting an eyelid. When I asked government to put pressure on those EU universities which are discriminating against students from Malta, the Education Minister simply said that it is at the discretion of the institution itself according to the subsidiarity principle on whether the Maltese students would be refunded the extra tuition fees they paid at the beginning of the year as non-EU students!
During the campaign for membership, citizens from the 10 countries who joined the EU heard a lot of rhetoric about joining a family where they will be treated as equal. Now citizens of these 10 countries are seeing for themselves the painful gap between reality and rhetoric.
I hope that the outcome of this case will match the rhetoric we heard in the propaganda campaign about the benefits of EU membership. I do hope that this case of discrimination against Maltese students - and government complacency about it - is not the shape of things to come, as this would turn the EU into George Orwell’s Animal Farm where “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
Now one might argue that fighting to be refunded the extra tuition fees paid for the remaining 55 days of this academic year is ‘Much ado about nothing’ or amounts to making a storm in a tea cup!
I beg to differ. The sums of money may not be huge but it is the principle that is at stake. I believe that laws to promote equal treatment of students from different EU countries are being breached. Apart from the fact that every lira spent by most of the parents of Maltese undergraduate and postgraduate students at EU universities has been hard earned and these parents had no choice as their sons and daughters are following courses that are not available in Malta.
So although the financial aspect is important, it is a matter of principle and the Maltese government is sending the wrong message by not taking up this case of discrimination against Maltese students. At the same time the University of Malta has decided from the first day of membership not to discriminate against other EU students for the rest of this academic year.
Malta is the smallest member of the EU, but we should not let our geographical smallness make us the last among equals through our mindset and behaviour in the new historical circumstances following EU membership.
After all we were told over and over again that from day one all of us would enjoy the full rights and benefits of membership. Now we know that this will certainly not be the case for a number of Maltese students following undergraduate and postgraduate courses at British and Dutch universities. These universities are refusing to lower the tuition fees for Maltese students for what remains of this academic year from May to the end of June.
I think that this is unfair, especially as from the very first day we are taking on most of the burdens of membership including the transfer of Lm29 million to EU funds, among them Euros 2.4 million that will go to Britain as part of the budget rebate renegotiated by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Former Education minister Evarist
Bartolo MP is the Labour Party’s Spokesperson on Education and lectures in the Communications Department at the University of Malta
evaristbartolo@hotmail.com
|
