Who`s Scaremongering

The Malta Independent on Sunday



The Opposition`s role in a democracy is to offer better alternatives than those that the incumbent government can deliver.

Labour is doing just that.` For three successive years an extraordinary general conference has approved a policy document on vital areas of importance for the nation`s development and welfare.` Two years ago it approved a document on social policy. Last year it approved an economic policy document and this year it has approved an environmental policy document which goes even beyond the outlining of general policies and constitutes an action plan for implementing thirty proposals for safeguarding and enhancing the environment in all its dimensions.

`It matters not in the least whether this policy is called Switzerland in the Mediterranean or Partnership. What matters is that it makes sense for Malta`s circumstances.` Apart from these policy documents, which will eventually form the backbone of the electoral manifesto,` Labour has it own policy for developing a special relationship with the EU which aims for a` close but not all absorbing relationship.

It matters not in the least whether this policy is called Switzerland in the Mediterranean or Partnership. What matters is that it makes sense for Malta`s circumstances.

The form of our relationship with the EU is only a means to an end.` The end is providing for our nation a better place to live, a better standard of living and more opportunities for productive employment. Labour strongly believes that its EU partnership policy provides better prospects for reaching this end, and does so as a matter of conviction not of convenience.

Indeed the argument is often made that this government has messed up matters so much on the domestic front that if Labour were to conveniently shift its EU policy to merely tolerate fresh negotiations leading to membership, it would pull towards it a big sector of disgruntled nationalist voters. Those nationalist voters` who cannot stand seeing this country going to the pits with Ministers arrogantly proclaiming that all is according to plan when the daily hardships suffered by the population prove otherwise.

But Labour`s EU partnership policy is founded on conviction. A conviction that we can do better outside membership by preserving the right to agreeing on those aspects of the acquis which make sense for both the EU and Malta,` and to negotiate on the other aspects which create more disadvantages with flexibility that cannot be found in the membership straight-jacket model.

For doing so Labour is accused of scare-mongering by the government and its friendly media. For warning those sectors which stand to be wiped away by the rigid rules of membership, Labour is accused of using scare tactics.

So what should the opposition do` Sing glory and join forces with the government in a crusade for the destruction of Maltese agriculture, farming and fisheries, the annihilation of the self-employed, and the gradual elimination of Maltese hunting and bird-trapping traditions` `Unfortunately scaremongering is more evident from the government side in trying to brainwash one and all that there is no real alternative to membership `

Should Labour just believe blindly that the mere badge of EU membership will bring us the necessary foreign direct investment which has escaped us for so long or should it use its logic in believing that such investment is more likely to be attracted by a contractual free trade area agreement and a competitive cost environment free of the cost push inputs and the rigidities of membership`

Unfortunately scaremongering is more evident from the government side in trying to brainwash one and all that there is no real alternative to membership. Whilst Verheugen counsels that we should wait until we know the details of the final package before deciding, government has long decided that whatever the terms there is no alternative to membership. Gone are the days when our Ministers used to argue that membership would only make sense if we obtain the right conditions.` If from an expected Lm100 million net inflows per annum we settle for a mere pittance and think these are the right conditions then what are the wrong conditions, if I may ask`

The scare mongering is so evident that government and its friendly media are determined to block any shred of news that could give credibility to Labour`s special partnership proposal.

Both the European Socialists and the European Popular parties are pressing for the formalisation of a structure permitting the EU to have a privileged relationship with neighbouring countries who feel that membership is unsuitable or impossible given their particular circumstances. `Scare-mongering is the prerogative of those who are not prepared to allow the electorate to choose between alternatives and is insisting that the alternative to membership is just doom`

The Convention presided by Valerie Giscard d`Estaing embodied these views from the two main political doctrines represented in the European Parliament in article42 stating that `This article could contain provisions defining a privileged relationship between the Union and its neighbouring States, in the event of a decision on the creation of such a relationship`.

While the draft constitution contains proposals for an ever more uniform and centrally driven Union, proposing a federal arrangement for most areas where the EU will speak to the rest of the world with a single resolute voice, it respects the rights of members to leave the Union and the desire for the Union to offer privileged relationship status to neighbouring States who are not prepared to absorb the full rigour of the acquis.

Scare-mongering is exercised at its best by those who prefer membership at all costs and are not willing to allow Labour as an alternative government the democratic right to having equal access to the media to explain and expound its policies.` Scare-mongering is the hallmark of those who just cannot be bothered even to spare a thought to the possibility of such alternatives being more suitable for Malta`s needs and who equate democracy to having Labour as a permanent opposition.

Scare-mongering cannot be pinned on the Opposition that is trying as a matter of deep conviction to show that its policies can deliver a better future.` Scare-mongering is the prerogative of those who are not prepared to allow the electorate to choose between alternatives and is insisting that the alternative to membership is just doom.