Making the News

The Times of Malta



Lino Spiteri (Breaking the news ` 17th` February) ought` not be surprised that the `yes` campaign, to reinforce their case,` uses his not so new revelations about his conversion to EU membership since October 1996.

Whilst free to make his choices and to change his mind taking account of the unfolding events and new information, he certainly is not na`ve to expect that his conversion is not used by the benefiting side to stress their argument or to expect his former colleagues not to feel let down.

The three reasons he gives, whilst certainly an improvement over the doctrinal terms with which the yes campaign continue to justify their belief in EU at all costs membership, do not carry the necessary weight to justify the change of mind by someone who had taken the full brunt of the pain that Labour movement had to go through for delivering this country from a clerically controlled colony, to a proud independent neutral state that managed to cut it economic over-dependence on its military values.

`The fact that he gave up so quickly on the job in 1996/97 should not mean that country has gone beyond the capacity to repair itself, but rather that it needs more persistence and bolder measures` That the state of public finances inherited by Labour in 1996 was beyond anybody`s worst expectations is not something any serious observer of the local political scene can argue about.` That more than six years later the real economy creaks ominously under the burden of structural imbalances and loss of international competitiveness is again not subject to any serious contention except by those eager to hide their guilt.

But concluding that we cannot work ourselves out of these problems unless we tie ourselves up and down, left and right, with EU bureaucracy leaves me with an ominous gap in the logic used to arrive at such a conclusion. For a time, until the size of the financial net transfers involved by membership was unknown,` one could have been tempted to buy into such logic. But with the disclosure of the financial package which at the most unlikely extreme would bring in a net of Lm81 million for the first three years without any assurances thereafter, and knowing that the cost of compliance and the cost of new` subsidies we have to fork out will erode a very large chunk of these net transfers, I fail to see the logic of how EU membership will address our faults.

Lino Spiteri admits that the ultimate cure has to come from within us. So if this is the case what is going to release the inner strength which has been sterilised by a laissez-faire government that has destroyed work ethics and devalued our traditional values of thrift and cautious financial management` What logic brings Lino Spiteri to conclude that the people who brought us to this desert will find the internal strength in membership to deliver us from this evil` ` whilst the differences between EU membership and non-membership in its economic dimensions could render itself into one of time scales for reaching a common final destination, the difference in the political dimension stands out more clearly and is likely to be accentuated rather than blurred through the passage of time.`

My logic tells me that the stranglehold of the bureaucracy we would be forced into would continue to sterilise these dormant values rather than awaken them. Once the cure has to come from within us,` must we join anybody`s caravan to cross the desert rather than give this country new leadership to help us release the strength that is undoubtedly inside us and that in the past helped us cross many such arduous deserts`

If a football team is under-performing its potential and risking relegation rather than contending for the title as it had aspired for, would it just merge into the team at the top of the table or would it bring in a new coach and some new players to give new zest and new ideas aiming for new synergies to leverage the strengths and control the weaknesses` The fact that he gave up so quickly on the job in 1996/97 should not mean that country has gone beyond the capacity to repair itself, but rather that it needs more persistence and bolder measures coupled with higher communication skills for the new management to succeed.

And what developments outside our control, may I be illuminated, are relentlessly eroding the advantages of being a non-member` Quite the contrary, I suggest. The more EU integrates onto itself countries from the east the more we gain a comparative advantage through non-membership` by retaining our ability to use flexibility to differentiate ourselves from the rest. The maxim that the small guys run under the feet of the big guys becomes applicable with greater relevance to our particular circumstances. ` When and how the media breaks the news is not important. What`s more relevant and within our control is how we make the news. And the news from Labour`s side` remains the old adage that the likes of Lino Spiteri gave their youth for.`

In particular who is coming to invest here if we are forced to offer the same package as that of other new members who have comparative cost advantages through the sheer fact of their being located closer to the core EU markets`

Absent from Lino Spiteri`s calculations for turning pro-EU is any reference to the political dimension. This is strange coming from a person who moved so successfully to and fro between politics and economics. Because whilst the differences between EU membership and non-membership in its economic dimensions could render itself into one of time scales for reaching a common final destination, the difference in the political dimension stands out more clearly and is likely to be accentuated rather than blurred through the passage of time.

When and how the media breaks the news is not important. What`s more relevant and within our control is how we make the news. And the news from Labour`s side` remains the old adage that the likes of Lino Spiteri gave their youth for. The news that we still believe that this country can be sovereign and free, as free as anybody can be in an inter-dependent world, and that such freedom can only be sustained through sane economic policies that can only be promulgated from the strength within us.

Once the cure lies inside us, who needs to join any caravan when the bill for the salvage could be as high as our own freedom and sovereignty`