The Malta Independent
We were promised a new spring following the people`s vote in favour of EU membership. Spring bears images of re-birth, a new life, a new beginning, with milder weather and kind showers carrying the scent of new flowers in bloom.
Clearly we are getting none of this. Whilst the international economy seems to have had a real spring in the second quarter following the uncertainties of the first quarter, in Malta we have seen just the opposite.
Whilst there is a growing conviction in the US and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the EU and in eastern European country candidates in line for membership, that their economies are now set to start growing again at healthier rates of the late 90`s, here the economic news points to a deteriorating situation which the government itself now defining it in terms of alarming and unsustainable.
For those economic analysts who can look over the cheap gloss of partisan propaganda dished out prior to the electoral tests of March/April there are no surprises in the developments on the local front.` Indeed what was being hidden or patched up before the elections is now being allowed to come out in the open as a carefully planned programme for mind-set formation about the tough re-structuring measures necessary to address our structural economic faults.
Indeed on an optimistic note I can muse that the promised spring is the realistic acknowledgement that we have to go through an economic winter before we can get there.
And indeed it is healthy, at least as a starting point for the necessary cure measures, that it has finally been accepted that it is not true that government finance is sustainable and getting better. It is bad and getting worse and this year it will hit 7% of the GDP if no additional measures are taken and could reach as high as 9% if the grant moneys projected to be received under the financial protocols with Italy and the EU are delayed by bureaucratic procedures.
It is also refreshing that finally the government had to come out on record and admit that with the Tal-Qroqq facility and all, public health system is unsustainable and has to be re-dimensionised to remind one and all that there is no free lunch anywhere.
Clearly it is offensive for true democrats that such grim reality was disguised under bright but fake gloss until the popular vote was secured. Indeed as I expressed last week a recall would be much more appropriate here than in California. But facts are facts and a meeting with reality could be delayed but never altogether avoided.
It is also refreshing that from the opposition side we are seeing signs of overdue realism in unwinding of counter-productive policies and situations which cost the MLP and the country dearly in being denied a much needed alternation of power.
The MLP`s determination that Malta must now do its best to make the most of EU membership is sane and commendable. Though it is well understandable that elements within still consider EU non-membership as a strategic unbendable principle, it is clear that a much larger stream are not only determined to accept the new reality but indeed to question why the MLP had to lose an election to get to this point.
The decisions to remove all boycotts and participate fully in the Electoral Commission and all media programmes is sensible and undoubtedly bear the prints of the new deputy leaders who have long been critical of the standing boycotts. Labour will no doubt persist in its endeavours to make the Electoral Commission as truly autonomous through being endowed with a Chairman who commands the confidence of both sides of the House, it cannot allow the government a free ride as it did by keeping its nominees away from the Commission.
The same applies for the 'Where`s Everybody` programmes. With or without the MLP`s participation it remains scandalous that the national publicly funded PBS allows such current affairs programmes to be run by third party contractors outside the umbrella of` its own ably-equipped and well-funded newsroom. But keeping the boycott eternally beyond the need to make a point and win concessions only harmed the MLP not the producers.
If we brace ourselves for a winter of re-structuring we might emerge into a spring better and sooner than it is presently realistic to expect.
We were promised a new spring following the people`s vote in favour of EU membership. Spring bears images of re-birth, a new life, a new beginning, with milder weather and kind showers carrying the scent of new flowers in bloom.
Clearly we are getting none of this. Whilst the international economy seems to have had a real spring in the second quarter following the uncertainties of the first quarter, in Malta we have seen just the opposite.
Whilst there is a growing conviction in the US and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the EU and in eastern European country candidates in line for membership, that their economies are now set to start growing again at healthier rates of the late 90`s, here the economic news points to a deteriorating situation which the government itself now defining it in terms of alarming and unsustainable.
For those economic analysts who can look over the cheap gloss of partisan propaganda dished out prior to the electoral tests of March/April there are no surprises in the developments on the local front.` Indeed what was being hidden or patched up before the elections is now being allowed to come out in the open as a carefully planned programme for mind-set formation about the tough re-structuring measures necessary to address our structural economic faults.
Indeed on an optimistic note I can muse that the promised spring is the realistic acknowledgement that we have to go through an economic winter before we can get there.
And indeed it is healthy, at least as a starting point for the necessary cure measures, that it has finally been accepted that it is not true that government finance is sustainable and getting better. It is bad and getting worse and this year it will hit 7% of the GDP if no additional measures are taken and could reach as high as 9% if the grant moneys projected to be received under the financial protocols with Italy and the EU are delayed by bureaucratic procedures.
It is also refreshing that finally the government had to come out on record and admit that with the Tal-Qroqq facility and all, public health system is unsustainable and has to be re-dimensionised to remind one and all that there is no free lunch anywhere.
Clearly it is offensive for true democrats that such grim reality was disguised under bright but fake gloss until the popular vote was secured. Indeed as I expressed last week a recall would be much more appropriate here than in California. But facts are facts and a meeting with reality could be delayed but never altogether avoided.
It is also refreshing that from the opposition side we are seeing signs of overdue realism in unwinding of counter-productive policies and situations which cost the MLP and the country dearly in being denied a much needed alternation of power.
The MLP`s determination that Malta must now do its best to make the most of EU membership is sane and commendable. Though it is well understandable that elements within still consider EU non-membership as a strategic unbendable principle, it is clear that a much larger stream are not only determined to accept the new reality but indeed to question why the MLP had to lose an election to get to this point.
The decisions to remove all boycotts and participate fully in the Electoral Commission and all media programmes is sensible and undoubtedly bear the prints of the new deputy leaders who have long been critical of the standing boycotts. Labour will no doubt persist in its endeavours to make the Electoral Commission as truly autonomous through being endowed with a Chairman who commands the confidence of both sides of the House, it cannot allow the government a free ride as it did by keeping its nominees away from the Commission.
The same applies for the 'Where`s Everybody` programmes. With or without the MLP`s participation it remains scandalous that the national publicly funded PBS allows such current affairs programmes to be run by third party contractors outside the umbrella of` its own ably-equipped and well-funded newsroom. But keeping the boycott eternally beyond the need to make a point and win concessions only harmed the MLP not the producers.
If we brace ourselves for a winter of re-structuring we might emerge into a spring better and sooner than it is presently realistic to expect.
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