Rare Breeze of fresh air

The Times of Malta

A rare breeze of fresh air

Anyone trying to debate seriously the issue of Malta`s future relations with the EU is in for a hard time.

I have been trying to elevate the debate above the rigid positions adopted by the two political schools. My more flexible approach is built on the following premises:

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Membership in the EU within the next 30 months is unrealistic.` Not only we are not ready for it considering that our economy cannot be brought into membership compatible mode within such a short time after so many years of neglect and improper spending, but the EU itself will not be ready for us or for anyone else before 2005, at the earliest.

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Bringing our economy into shape is therefore much more urgent than the nature of our relationship with the EU. The two issues should in fact be separated as otherwise in a referendum people could vote against the EU for the wrong reasons.

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Considering that the EU issue is politically charged and consequently a source of division, the country is in no position to take such irreversible decision before reasonable congruence is brought to bear between the position of our two political schools.

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Malta has a realistic choice between membership and Swiss style special relationship. It is therefore strategically and tactically wrong for the government to write-off the Swiss model off-handedly as it could be an indispensable step on the route to membership and a very valid tool to use in the negotiating process. It is equally inopportune to be categorical against membership even in the long term.` Whilst such concept of time is abstract and unquantified, it cannot ever be` recommended to depart from the wisdom of never say never.

As the EU itself has still to evolve and somehow find the right balance between two opposing forces, enlargement and harmonisation, it is not inconceivable that the EU will be forced to start considering limited form of membership which could be an acceptable variant to the Swiss model.

These premises have not yet been seriously challenged. If anything they have been avoided rather than used as a platform to base serious debate.

The euro-phile political school plods on with its `regardless` approach to membership.` Rather than accept my more flexible position as a source of inspiration they use it to chastise the other side that one of their own is not in perfect agreement with their rigid no.

In the Times of` May 15th they` criticised me directly for two diametrically opposed stands which cannot co-exist. The Opinion cartoon on page 9 shows me` in a pro-EU mode contradicting the MLP position depicting me as if I were firmly in the euro-phile camp.` On page 12 the Prime Minister is reported as criticising my writing in KULLHADD promoting the fleshing up of Labour`s swiss model and reporting ` Mr. Mifsud had also written that it did not benefit Malta to join the EU`.

Is it inconsistency or lack of proper communication on my part` I hardly think so as modesty apart I` am rather better than average in communicating abilities and consistent logic. More likely it is the arrogance of those who think that everything is either black or white without any room for shades of grey. The arrogance of whoever pretends having` exact solutions to all future imponderables.

Such criticism elicited a rather worrying development. The Prime Minister asserted that Malta will not be able to exclude a Customs Union arrangement from the Swiss model free-trade agreement with the EU.` If this is typical of the soft approach our negotiators take with the EU than we can just as well accept whatever is proposed, weakened as we are in our negotiating stand with government`s `regardless` approach.

It was a rare breeze of fresh air that finally someone from the government ranks had the courage to add a conditional if to a hitherto categorical yes to EU membership. If eventually the political schools could mature from a rigid yes or no, to a `yes if` and `no, but` position we could be laying the ground for gradual convergence of currently opposing stands.

How sad that soon after this bit of fresh air the same nationalist MP had to argue the party line in a TV political debate where rather than continue to develop the `yes if ` concept, he unceremoniously wrote-off the alternative Swiss model approach` The `yes, if` mode of accessing the EU would be hollow without having an alternative fall-back position.