Hollow MPs and citizens

Parliament is now in its Easter recess. It reconvenes again on April 19 - just 11 days before Malta joins the European Union. Successful EU membership will depend on our ability to navigate in Malta's interests the complex, difficult and time-consuming decision-making process of an EU made up of 25 member states.

Success will also depend on the willingness and ability of the government to involve fully in this process the Maltese parliament, the social partners and civil society. Government arrogance and a go-it-alone mentality will add to our problems. We are already constrained severely by our size and our limited resources, as the smallest EU member and the only one that has a part-time parliament.

When a country joins the EU, a substantial part of policy and law-making emigrates from "the national space" to "the European common space". Policy and law-making emigrate from democratically elected national institutions to - so far - mostly appointed bureaucratic European institutions. Member states have set up European Affairs Committees in parliament to recover a role in the EU legislative process.

How is our part-time parliament, full of part-time parliamentarians, going to play a meaningful and democratic role in the EU legislative and policy-making process? Even much bigger, full-time and well-resourced national parliaments feel overwhelmed by the task of scrutinising their government's work in EU institutions.

Unless serious steps are taken, future decisions impacting the lives of our citizens will be made through a process that bypasses our parliament and deprives our citizens of a meaningful role in the democratic process.

What resources is the government going to put at the disposal of parliament to enable it to engage in all the EU legislative and policy-making process in a structured, focused and comprehensive manner? Involving parliament in the ritual - not the substance - of the EU legislative and policy-making process will serve to turn all of us, parliamentarians and citizens alike, into hollow men and women.

Months ago the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign and European Affairs was set up with the scrutiny of EU proposed directives and legislation as one of its main objectives.

We have lost precious time in the past months to start working properly and learn how to scrutinise EU proposed legislation in the interests of our country. We were promised support staff to help us in our task. We are still waiting. The government is showing no urgency to involve us seriously in the work ahead. This does not augur well for our country.