Back to Square One

The Times of Malta



While the country continues to burn scarce and invaluable resources in a lop-sided referendum where the government side plays a Goliath and David game with an opposition starved of financial and media resources, the outcome of the referendum has become all too predictable.

It will simply take us back to square one where both sides claim victory and the real match will be postponed to the general election leaving the country`s state of indecision suspended in mid-air.

The Government will claim to have obtained a yes majority for EU membership counting only the valid votes cast; the opposition will claim victory for its Partnership policy counting nays, abstentions and invalids as a percentage of the total eligible vote.

`The Government will claim to have obtained a yes majority for EU membership counting only the valid votes cast; the opposition will claim victory for its Partnership policy counting nays, abstentions and invalids as a percentage of the total eligible vote.` The referendum, being purely consultative and with government shorn of the constitutional authority to execute its membership policy which falls well into the next legislature, leaves the whole issue postponed for a few months till the next election.

This shows how sensible the opposition has been all the way in arguing that a pre-election referendum is just meaningless and that an election needs to be held first. The referendum, unless either side obtains a very strong margin of victory in the next election, should sensibly have been held post-election where free from the heath of general elections the EU issue can be discussed and debated seriously and serenely but still within the calendar of the 2004 enlargement.

It is very regretful therefore that the electorate is being presented with a very partial view of the EU from the government side whose resources are focussed on brainwashing and scare mongering.

Government`s argument for membership is built in doctrinal terms on a false assumption.` An assumption that membership is an objective in its own right rather than a means to a haughtier objective, that of providing a decent standard of living for our citizens, in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner, whilst contributing to regional and international peace and prosperity.

`Those who, like me, still believe that we can` find the internal strength to manage ourselves properly, will subscribe to the creed that Partnership is the best option and that the electorate should have been given the right to choose between options in a calm and informed setting rather during the high din of an election campaign.` Government wants membership not as the better or best alternative, but as the only possible way forward. This strategy not only weakened its hand whilst negotiating membership, but also instigated EU emissaries to join to fray and try to persuade us that no alternatives exist and that the deal we got could not be improved under any circumstances.` I am old enough to remember the same thing being said about the independence package negotiated by Borg Olivier only to find out seven years later that this was far from being so.

So whilst governments spends our tax money lavishly to drum in people`s heads that there is really no alternative and even attempts to ridicule those of us who gallantly try to prove otherwise, facts are different, very different.

The core of government`s message is that it has mismanaged our economy and our environment to a degree that leaves no further solutions other than calling in an external agent like the EU to force upon the discipline to get us out of the rut we have fallen into.` This argument, which is widely subscribed to, generates the inverse logic that the greater the government`s incompetence in managing domestic affairs, the stronger becomes its argument for EU membership as the only solution.`

Labour`s message line Partnership ` the best option, acknowledges the existence of options and argues that if we can regain control of our domestic affairs we can do much better through partnership than through membership. This is so because partnership allows us the possibility to position ourselves differently, to be flexible in grasping opportunities as they arise, and to leverage to our advantage our geo-strategic position to translate it into economic benefits. Through membership we are not allowed to be different, we are not allowed to be flexible and we have to give up the negotiating card of our geo-political importance rather than use it for our economic advantage.

Those who, like me, still believe that we can` find the internal strength to manage ourselves properly, will subscribe to the creed that Partnership is the best option and that the electorate should have been given the right to choose between options in a calm and informed setting rather during the high din of an election campaign.`