It is becoming obvious, even to the most casual observer of European Union affairs, that EU institutions spend most of their time dealing with national rather than international issues.
The complex policy-making process of the EU shapes in various ways the following areas of member states: economic and monetary policy, internal market, environment policy, regional and structural policy, agricultural policy, justice and home affairs, external relations, telecommunications and transport policy, social policy, education and culture.
No wonder many questions are being submitted in our parliament show that EU affairs are mostly domestic - and not foreign - affairs. For example, in a number of sittings before the summer recess, questions were tabled about the impact of EU membership on food prices (PQs 570, 581 to 584), and on Air Malta's ability to withstand the pressure of liberalisation (PQ 1,123).
Last November two European Central Bank officials, Philippe Moutot and Anatoli Annenkov, visited Malta and gave a speech on "Strategies for Euro Area Membership". They stressed that "participation in the EU and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is only an intermediate goal, with the ultimate goal being improvements in living standards within stable democracies."
EU membership is not an end in itself but as a means to a better quality of life. EU membership will only be judged a success by our citizens if it improves their quality of life. The implications of EU membership go beyond the economic sphere. They also touch the core of political power in a democracy.
Power becomes less tied to national boundaries and more rooted in the space of EU institutions. This can lead to a political process that is felt to become more remote, less accountable. If not addressed properly, it can lead to a serious democratic deficit with people disconnecting themselves from the normal process of politics, not even participating significantly in the elections for the European Parliament, which is the only EU institution representing EU citizens directly.
So far the Nationalist government is showing no concrete political will to address this issue of the democratic deficit that can result from EU membership. Government's proposed structures and decision-making processes of Malta as an EU member state are dangerous as they institutionalise this democratic deficit.
Government is proposing to give more power to government-appointed and unelected players in public life than to elected local MPs. Government wants to assign our national parliament a very subordinate and minor role in the legislative process once Malta joins the EU.
More prosperous and more democratic?
Government is still in time to change course and set up structures that are more national, democratic and bottom-up rather than top-down and dominated by the party in government. The EU legislative process from Malta's end should be driven by our national parliament with structures that include the active involvement and total participation of business organisations, trade unions and civil society.
Campaigning for EU membership, the Nationalist Party promised us not only more prosperity, better-paid jobs and a new economy, it also promised us a better quality of life, even higher forms of democracy. The poetry of this propaganda campaign now has to become the prose of everyday life in the real world.
From the pleasure principle of ideology we now pass to the reality principle of experience. Increasingly, people will start judging EU membership from their direct and tangible experience of life within the EU. As important sectors of our economy shed old structures like holiday taxes for export-oriented companies in manufacturing, the tour operator support scheme in tourism and certain financial services regulations as they are not compatible with EU membership obligations, we await the benefits of the new structures that have to be set up following EU membership.
Will these new structures deliver the goods? Will new foreign direct investment flow in to create more jobs and wealth? Will tourism regain a new vigour and a fresh lease of life, able to compete successfully with other tourist destinations, both near and far, and draw more and higher-income tourists to Malta and Gozo? Will our financial services sector attract new business to Malta despite the new framework within which it has to operate? Only time will tell.
As political power moves upward and migrates outward to EU institutions, will the Nationalist government be ready to set up new policy and decision-making structures that are truly democratic, participatory and inclusive?
The Nationalist Party has won the political campaign for EU membership. Often it is easier to win the war than peace. Making EU membership a success is much more difficult that succeeding in a political campaign. EU membership creates a new economic and political terrain that demands new ways of doing business and politics.
Government has appealed to the Opposition to work for the common good and be united in our dealings with EU institutions. Developing severe schizophrenia in our political life: co-operation and unity in Brussels, conflict and division in Malta, is not only harmful, it is also impossible as most of the work that has to be done in our dealings with Brussels, are domestic issues that touch the everyday life of our people.
If the Nationalist government wants to create the conditions for a new way of doing politics, it has to change its behaviour and mind-set and take bold decisions that really help us all feel welcome and respected in our country, that we belong to the same country, even though we may support different political parties. If the old politics of trench warfare is to give way to a new politics where we co-operate to get the best for our country within the EU, the Nationalist government must stop using state institutions against the Labour Party.
Working for the common good in an open and pluralist society with a parliamentary democracy can only happen where all the protagonists involved really feel that the serious game of national politics is being played on a level playing field.
evaristbartolo@hotmail.com