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Welcome to Malta, where 10 years of passionate political bickering on membership fizzled out in clouds of smoke over the Grand Harbour on 1 May. It was a historical turning point, a milestone, but today, to the man and woman in the street, just seven months after saying ‘hello Europe’, membership is but just a cold afterthought that springs to mind when our ministers go off for a trip to Brussels.
Reality bites and it is not Europe. Contentious domestic issues, the precarious state of public finances, tax hikes, rising unemployment and general discontent at how the country’s administration is being run have helped to relegate EU membership to the annals of history in only a couple of months.
EU membership has served to stimulate discussion and action on certain issues which politicians could previously afford to ignore, and there is no doubt that when Malta eventually comes in line with EU rules and regulations, benefits will be reaped.
But for most of us Europe comes to us in the form of a four-page leaflet issued every week by the Malta-EU Information Centre and a lucrative cash splurge on a nine-storey still-to-be renovated office block by Malta’s Plenipotentiary Ambassador to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana.
The funds, so much at the heart of the 10 year political battle for membership, have not yet materialised. There are few visible projects being financed by EU funds and although it has been promised that things will change next year we are now hearing complaints from non-governmental organisations who are seeing their requests for EU funding turned down because Malta does not yet have a law regulating the voluntary sector.
Membership has caught us unprepared in a number of sectors, not least the research and development field where the EU directs substantial amounts of money. In Malta much heralded funds promised by the government have, however, failed to materialise.
Farmers have also felt the pinch claiming they were misled by the pre-referendum Nationalist government over the implementation of the opt-out clause to protect Maltese farm produce from cheaper EU imports.
The levies on food products did disappear on 1 May but cheaper foreign pasta, wine and milk were not enough to make up for the higher prices of toiletries, which for the first time became subject to a VAT of 18 per cent on the same day.
To top it all, the benefits of free movement between EU borders risk being compromised by Government’s recent tax hike in the passenger service charge, which makes the national airline’s cheaper flights at Lm17 look ridiculous.
Of course the EU now has a Maltese Commissioner and the Prime Minister can boast he has as much power as Gerhard Schroeder in determining what the block of 25 does about taxation and foreign policy. We can negotiate alliances, stomp our feet and set the agenda of the world’s single largest block of influential countries.
But it’s going to take much more to make our presence felt. During his visit to Malta in 2002, then EU Parliament President Pat Cox touted Malta’s membership as a plus for the EU in that it would bring the Mediterranean dimension to a block that has careered eastwards.
There has been little to suggest Malta is succeeding in putting the Mediterranean on Europe’s agenda. This little country lacks the ambition to push for an EU-sponsored peace deal in the Middle East despite the long-standing personal relationship between former President Guido de Marco and deceased Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
Malta is doing next to nothing to push for a development and trade policy for the North African coast, which would aim to improve quality of life over there. Indeed, despite the popular belief that as a country we have Libya’s ear, Ghaddafi simply flew over our heads to meet EU Commission President Romano Prodi in Brussels. It was also neighbouring Italy that took the lead on the issue of illegal immigration and not Malta as had been suggested by a Maltese journalist based in Brussels.
The EU debate beckons once again. Parliament is expected to discuss the European Constitution early next year. Surprises are not expected with the Labour Party now embracing membership. But the debate will not reach the heights of the pre-membership years when statements were loaded with fire and brimstone.
For the ‘ordinary’ person, hounded by economic uncertainty and job insecurity, the EU is just an afterthought. The debate on the Constitution is, of course, important but it will fail to fire up people’s imagination. Rather, in 2005 it is the electricity bill that will be the subject of much acrimonious debate for hard-pressed families.
Indeed, welcome to Malta, officially an EU member state!
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