Prosaic

In his opinion piece oddly named Prunes And Prudence (December 28), Alfred Sant seemed totally unaware, unless he is still in denial, that one of the reasons why the majority of the electorate voted in favour of Malta becoming a member of the European Union in 2003 was precisely the solidarity that the same Union offered to its member states. Such solidarity helps member states tackle problems which on their own they would have found it difficult to cope with. Also that such help cuts down the time span within which these problems are sorted out.

Dr Sant wrote: "We must tackle the problems we face, some self-created, others raining on us from outside, with our resources of people and available strategic assets, on our own merits. Nobody will do the job for us, or in Good Samaritan mode, absorb some of our pain".

That our people are our main resource is an undisputed fact. And it is precisely for this reason that we needed as a nation to empower our people. Our membership of the EU is allowing our young people from primary level to university level to be continuously aware of the larger community that we now belong to. The Euro-wide contacts that are developing on a daily basis for students, teachers and whole educational communities are and will in time enrich this precious resource we call "people" into an altogether new resource. Hasn't Dr Sant heard of the many courses being totally or partially financed by the EU, resulting in a better prepared workforce, more roundly educated and more skilled to face a fast changing world?

In due course thousands of our students and workers would benefit from exchanges abroad with the resulting enrichment for themselves, their workplaces and their families. When one reads about a small primary school from San Lawrenz village in Gozo being short-listed as one of the 12 finalists for the eTwinning Prize for a project in collaboration with schools in the UK and Norway, one gets a feeling of pride. I certainly delight in the fact that we had visionaries among our politicians who led us to these new pastures.

I experienced similar feelings when I read about the oversubscribed courses at the University of Gozo Centre, in agriculture, business studies, e-commerce, environmental planning and management, all financed from EU funds. No Dr Sant, we do not just have our resources, there are other resources we can tap and there will be more in the future.

Of course, Dr Sant is right, nobody will do the job for us. Why should they? The EU has opened up new horizons for our people and it is up to our people to exploit all opportunities to the full. We do not want a country that belongs to the EU with its people behaving as outsiders. In practice this means that as a country (like many other countries much larger than ourselves), we should not shy away from owning up to the reality that we do have problems that are much too big to solve "on our own merits". The environment is one of them. Can Dr Sant in all honesty provide us with a timetable that his party in government would have followed, outside the EU, of course, that would have led to the present revolution that is hitting us in areas such as waste disposal, cleaner seas, cleaner air and so forth. From where would the finances at present pouring in from the EU have come from?

Dr Sant mentions problems raining on us from outside. Such is life, particularly if you are a small island state on the periphery of one developed continent and so near another one struggling to survive.

The last year was dominated by the influx of irregular immigrants to our islands. Even here Dr Sant is way off beam. The efforts made by the government and others are paying dividends. Our pain is being absorbed and shared by the EU and by individual countries that have offered their support in more ways than one. We have succeeded as a nation to put illegal immigration on the agenda for the whole of the EU and beyond, by using the United Nations as a forum and the Commonwealth Conference, which Dr Sant still mocks at every opportunity he gets. There's no Good Samaritan in the equation. There is hard work from our part and solidarity from the part of our partners in the EU.

It is sometimes important to remind people especially those who are being misled by being told that some of our present problems are the result of our membership of the EU, that we have only joined the EU less than two years ago. And in such a short time we have already seen tangible benefits.

As for the process of change, in order to succeed, we must know where we are starting from and where we intend to get to, taking into account what may happen in between. Our starting point has to take into account where we are now, a country belonging to the EU on the threshold of the next stage of planning our immediate future, making sure that the generous and unprecedented funds which we have acquired for 2007-2013 are used to continue to improve the living standards of our people. Our assets and our resources are no longer limited to those we had in the pre-membership era of the EU. To suggest anything different is to lack imagination. Anyone and any organisation without imagination based on the exciting new realities of our country is an obstacle to realising the European dream for our people.