Partnership is no option

Why does the Malta Labour Party talk about its self-styled partnership proposal as though it were an alternative to joining the European Union?

I cannot take Labour's deceit any longer. Partnership, whatever it may be, is not an option but a mere slogan.

There are only two choices, joining the EU or not. There is no middle road, no halfway house called "partnership". A country is either in the EU, or out.

Yes, there are association agreements but we already have one - the best thing we can have outside membership. There is no further Malta can go in its relations with the EU without actually becoming a member.

There is another point. Rejecting membership does not mean we will simply carry on as we are now. The shape and size of the EU, our only significant trading partner, will change permanently and dramatically next year. This is not a possibility. It is a fact.

Next year, the EU will stretch from north to south, west to east of the continent, and will cover 24 countries, without us. This means one thing only: we will no longer be relevant unless we join. Life and business will become progressively more difficult.

We will also have to live in fear that the EU will implement measures to encourage tourism within its continent-wide borders, meaning that the 500 million citizens of those 24 countries (the ones most of our tourists come from) will have no incentive to travel to Malta. What then?

A "No" vote in the referendum is not a "Yes" vote for something called "partnership". It is a rejection of EU membership, now and for the rest of the foreseeable time. That's it. Those who are considering voting "No" should ask themselves one question only: what do I hope to achieve by doing this?

They should also thoroughly assess the risks involved in keeping Malta out of a continent-wide EU. Who will admit to having voted "No" when the gates to the EU clang shut on us for good after a negative referendum result and the country wakes up to the reality of the bleak years ahead?

For make no mistake, it will be very bleak. A decision made with caprice or not enough thought can damn the country and its people for good. With no raw materials, with EU citizens disincentivised from travelling outside the EU and without free access to the markets of the EU and the countries with which it has trade agreements we may well find ourselves spirited back to the early 1980s, begging for funds from neighbours to help us survive.

It is beyond dispute that Malta will be isolated and the only revenue paid into the coffers of the state will come from the pockets of the Maltese, whose very jobs will be at risk. Any project we decide to embark on will have to be paid for by the Maltese taxpayer. Yes, of course, we will survive. We always have done. We even survived World War II.

We can survive the rejection of EU membership. But who wants to merely survive, instead of thriving? Who wants to live from hand to mouth when he can build a better life? Survival is what we did in the 1980s, with controls of all sorts, and Malta and the Maltese living a grey half-life. Surely our memories are not that short.

There are importers who plan to reject membership on the grounds that they will no longer be able to control all imports of "their" product through a sole agency. They say that their profits will be affected. Perhaps they haven't thought hard enough.

Parallel imports will occur even outside the EU - they are doing so now. And if Malta stays out of the EU, the biggest dent in their profits will come about not as a result of parallel imports but through the declining spending power of the Maltese. People will buy less because they will have less money to buy with. Make no mistake: the level of business activity in Malta now is a direct result of our plans to join the EU. If we don't carry on with those plans, things are going to be very different.

Alfred Sant is telling us that he will obtain a better deal from the EU - a better deal than membership. Any thinking person will see that if such a deal were possible, the EU would not be made up of 24 members next year but of 24 partners.

If he has something better than membership within his sights, then he is the only one who is seeing it.

Dr Sant has a long history of bad judgment, amply illustrated by his aborted tenure as prime minister.

The tragedy - for us, as well as for him - is that instead of admitting error he digs in deeper and tries to persuade others, damaging Malta and its people along the way.