A few days ago Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero started his second term of office in Spain. He announced that his priority was going to be the economy. He has to solve the serious crisis in the construction industry and the collapse of the property market; take steps to raise productivity in the rest of the economy; and create new economic activity based on high value-added services and technology. Forming a government made up of nine women and eight men makes Zapatero the head of probably the most female government in the world. This commitment in favour of equality of the sexes is reinforced by the setting up of a new ministry for equality run by a woman.
Zapatero is making it clear that in his second term he wants to continue the modernization of Spain he started in his first term. In a recent interview he explained his view of his politics: “The programme of the modern left is about sound economic management with a surplus on the public accounts, moderate taxes and a limited public sector… together with an extension of civil and social rights. That is the programme of the future.”
Zapatero defines himself as a politician without any strong ideological convictions and describes his politics as being driven by “buen talante”; a phrase that means “pleasantness, good humour or niceness”. His lightness in terms of ideology gives him a wide flexible space where to manoeuvre, puts him in touch with many ordinary people and disconcerts his adversaries.
This lack of strong ideological convictions opens Zapatero to the charge that he is all style and very little substance and that his leadership lacks focus, vision or strategic goals. But during the first term his personality was crucial in making his government a success.
His style is considered a welcome change from the confrontational, arrogant and brusque approach of his predecessor, Jose` Maria Aznar of the Popular Party. It also helped him to keep together his coalition of several minority parties, such as the United Left and the Republican Left of Catalonia by developing a warm personal relationship with their leaders.
At the European summit in December 2005, Zapatero secured a very good budget deal for Spain not through obstinacy but, in the words of one foreign diplomat, “using sweet reason and considerable personal charm”.
He is going to need lots of both to have another successful term in office.

Suffocating our economy
In 2004 Prime Minister Gonzi promised us that new shipping lines would be queuing up to use the Freeport and enhance our shipping links. The opposite has occurred and today, when Maltese factories cannot take it any more, they are complaining bitterly. CMA, who has the monopoly on container shipments via Freeport, has so far not only refused to comment publicly about these complaints but has also failed to tackle the problems they have created in tandem with the government.
Had the PN government, when it privatised the Freeport, safeguarded our manufacturing industries by obliging CMA to provide a minimum service for Malta’s imports and exports, these problems would not continually arise. Exporters are complaining that they will lose their export trade because of the lack of container shipping connections, and they cannot use trailers via Grimaldi (through Grand Harbour) because Maltese exports are heavy and unsuitable for trailers. The pity is that the shipping lines using Freeport, are gradually being reduced because the only lines serving Malta are cutting their Malta calls because their shipping association with CMA is being terminated while other lines are unreliable.
What Maltese exporters are now trying to achieve by public pressure through the media is to make the government subsidise exports through a means of public service commitment subsidy, like the government gave to Grimaldi. But whereas Grimaldi operated its service to Italy irrespective of the public service commitment subsidy, CMA will not accept any pittance of a subsidy because their ships are far larger and more costly and they would rather by-pass Malta (not load any containers from/to Malta) and load for other destinations. After all, CMA had stated that several of its services will be moved towards the year end from Malta to Morocco. 
Our manufacturing industries, deprived of links to the rest of the world, are gradually being suffocated.