As the date of Malta's EU accession looms larger, electoral opinion seems to be coming round to the realisation that a watershed has been reached.

In many more ways than one, the Fenech Adami administration is now confronted by new and pressing realities. The days of sweeping economic, financial and social problems under the carpet are over. In the new EU environment, the winds of competition will put to the test the forces of the status quo.

Dominated as it is by old and tired hands, and lacking enough new blood, the administration is likely to be hard put to it to keep pace with the imperatives of change.

The Labour Party in opposition, having lost the election mainly on the issue of EU accession, is now adjusting to the new environment and has to gear itself accordingly.

Though it may be useful to examine why it lost the last election, its obvious, foremost challenge is to be equal, not only to the new opportunities, but also to the massive problems that have accumulated during the last legislature.

Chief among these is the cost of government that has hardened into a deep-seated structural deficit, and an accumulation of unprecedented national debt.

In turn, the national debt has given birth to its own illegitimate child - namely its servicing costs which, by themselves, run up to around Lm70 million per annum at the current rate.

Another associated problem is the cost of social services which father yet another illegitimate child, the so-called welfare gap. This represents the difference between all items of expenditure and contributions made in terms of the Social Security Act, 1987, and added up to Lm48 million last year. This amounts to a hidden surtax on the tax-paying population.

All these "problems" reared their heads with the connivance of the forces of the status quo. In the new EU environment, these forces will be savaged by the forces of competition.

In the interests of "competitiveness" and "survival", demands will be made to sanitise public finance by selling the family jewels, by eliminating all forms of public subsidies and, if needs be, by re-evaluating the currency.

In the nature of things, these measures will serve the interests of those who want a share of the Malta market and there is no way of stopping them.

Malta's uppermost interest is to achieve growth through new investment and through all sorts of initiatives that will enhance Malta's foreign earnings.

In other words, Malta has to gear itself up and compete on its hind legs. The alternative is to perish. The initiative has to come from Malta and urgently calls for a new outlook by all the political classes.

This is why this is the time to move on. We have to cope with the crisis that accumulated under the past Fenech Adami administrations and with all the consequences. We will have to respond to the biddings of Brussels. At one and the same time, we will have to be outward-oriented and to build anew with due regard to the prevalence of social justice over the voracity of market competition.

Politicians and central government institutions usually lag behind events - especially when they are part of a closed and secretive system.

At the centre, the Fenech Adami administration continues as though little has changed. The people at the head of the PN apparatus, of the bureaucracy and of the business institutions, huddle together on a familiar but shrinking terrain, while those for whom they are supposed to speak, or whose future they seek to plan, are either shut out or are prone to float away on waves of disillusion and are already looking for a new lead.

The belief is widespread that power has been progressively falling into the hands of minorities within minorities, of forces outside parliament, of representatives who do not represent, of a growing number of lobbies, of bureaucrats behind closed doors, of faceless string-pullers who manipulate certain media commentators.

We could very well have been heading towards an extraordinary situation in which the vast majority of the working people were becoming detached and left with no say in decisions that shape national life.

In the new EU environment, this situation is bound to change rapidly. The forces of competition will insist on change, and the change they are interested in is, primarily, that which will allow them to compete with us in our own internal market.

They will also insist on a level playing field within the whole area of the EU where the strongest will compete against the weak, and the weak will fall by the wayside.

Pensioners, 'yard workers and others will be among the first in Malta to find themselves in the eye of the storm. Others will follow.

It will no longer be possible to seek protection behind the wall of the status quo. Neither could procrastination or lethargy arrest decision-making. Change will be inevitable and the rotweilers of market competition will do their damn-dest to devour all the weaklings in sight.

The rotweilers must be kept at bay if weaklings that deserve a chance are to be fairly protected. And a new breed of young businessmen with initiative and candlepower is called for to raise the flag of Maltese enterprise in far-away places.

In the changed circumstances, Malta will need politicians whose concern is with new directions of thought and effort.

It is realities, not party manifestos or media spin, which will and must, determine Malta's way forward.