Another One Bites the Dust

The Times of Malta



It`s official now; funding is no good reason to join the EU in membership.

All studies made by PN exponents to justify the pro-membership stance have always used funding as a main reason for their position. Starting with the study conducted by Josef Bonnici and Michael Frendo in the late eighties for the Chamber of Commerce right up to recent study made by Prof Lino Briguglio for the UHM, the funding case was made in no uncertain manner.

In an interview given in 1997 by the current Head of MIC, then president of the European Movement, he made the case that using Slovenia as a benchmark, Malta would be due to receive Lm100 million p.a. if the then Labour government had not frozen the EU application. On being quoted later he explained that his argument was that Malta would get such funds upon membership not in the accession stage. `The famous declaration of 16th August 1998 in a PN electoral campaign mass meeting that Labour`s non-membership policy has denied country Lm100million p.a. in EU funds still rings loud and hardly needs any reminding.`

The famous declaration of 16th August 1998 in a PN electoral campaign mass meeting that Labour`s non-membership policy has denied country Lm100million p.a. in EU funds still rings loud and hardly needs any reminding. But one ought to remind readers that even after the election,` Dr Joe Borg now Minister for Foreign Affairs, then Parliamentary Secretary, was bullish that even in the pre-accession stage, Malta would receive financial assistance four, five or six times what it used to receive under the financial protocol which was not renewed due to the membership negotiations.

In April of last year I made the point that MIC was making a misrepresentation when categorically certifying that Malta would be entitled for the highest level of funding under the EU`s Structural Fund without pointing out that (a) statistics collected by Malta was based on` an old methodology which might impede such entitlement when up-dated (b) calculation had to be based on an EU of 25 not of 15 (c) budgetary provisions beyond 2006 will be decided only after Malta had already taken the irreversible step of joining in membership. Taking all this into account I made the argument that funding could never be a reason for joining the EU.

All hell broke loose.` I was criticised by a chorus of Ministers including the Prime Minister, the European Movement and of course MIC. All those who were embarrassed by not delivering on their promise of pre-accession funding were not prepared to let anyone throw any doubt on our entitlement after membership.

In reply to all these I stood my ground and suggested to stand the test of time. Now time has spoken. Under whatever scenario, funding can never be a good reason to join in EU membership.

Now that one of the main pillars of the pro-membership case has had to bite the dust, what else is left to justify the government`s rigid position in favour of Malta joining the EU in membership Basically what remains is the argument of inevitability. `Under whatever scenario, funding can never be a good reason to join in EU membership.`

Inevitability is that this is something beyond us; that it is an appointment with destiny regarding which we should use faith not reason. It goes that once almost everybody else has either joined or is waiting to join there is nothing to argue about. That our economy will never receive the shock therapy it needs unless this is forced upon us by the EU, as our political system does not allow our politicians to take the necessary but unpopular measures. That foreign investment will continue to escape us unless we can present ourselves with the credentials of EU membership.

The government has one thing working in its favour to strengthen the case for inevitability. The more it mismanages the economy, the stronger the case for inevitability becomes. It is ironic that the case for membership has now become totally dependent on government`s own incompetence.

The argument goes that because the government is incompetent, we must necessarily assume that all future governments will also be similarly incompetent and do not deserve to be given a chance to prove otherwise. So joining the EU has become an intractable mission to protect us from our own incompetence. `It is ironic that the case for membership has now become totally dependent on government`s own incompetence`

This is indeed pitiful. The case for non-membership is based on serious assumptions that we, and only we can turn the economy around, through the necessary measures that we take for ourselves. Just look at regions in the EU that although having been in membership for more than 40 years still suffer economic dereliction in spite positive funding.

In order to pull ourselves from the problems we have been landed in, we have to devise a strategy based on differentiation, flexibility and leverage.` Differentiation in acknowledging that we are a micro peripheral economy.` Flexibility in that we have to be quick to use our differentiation for our benefit and to keep adapting it to remain competitive as the external environment changes. Leverage to ensure that we use our geo-strategic political assets to a prudent maximum in negotiation with other economic blocks.

These very issues of differentiation, flexibility and leverage are excluded from the EU membership policy which ought to make the argument of inevitability as weak as the argument of funding. Similarly the argument of inevitability should be made to bite the dust.