Editorial

Quite in line with the message of Easter, Eastertide invigorates the heart and spirit, transmitting an infective joy. Malta is basking in brilliant sunshine, heralding the warm days ahead. It will not be long now before the festa cycle starts all over again, beginning with the feast of St Publius. And then, in no time, the annual controversy over fireworks will spark again, a link in a chain of national talking points that have come to characterise much of life in Malta today.

In no time too, the political debate picks up as well. There will then be a summer break, after which the country will be totally immersed in politics as the parties vie with each other for the vote at the hustings. In between, life goes on, pretty normally, which, in Malta's context, often includes a heavy dose of moaning about how life is treating us all so very badly. Rarely do we stop to think of our blessings, a characteristic not peculiar to the Maltese but maybe we excel a bit in it.

In terms of size, the country may not be larger than a small town in Europe, but its qualify of life is not to be sneezed at. A quality of life index, drawn up by International Living magazine some time ago, ranked Malta in 16th place, ahead of such countries as Canada, Ireland and Sweden. In top place is France, followed by Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy and Luxemburg.

Even though Malta dropped one place in the ranking for 2007, as compared with its place in the previous index, it is scoring well. Many other places besides Malta have a good climate, but according to the index the island's is the second best in the world. True, this may not be the best point to make in tourism marketing, as many other countries have good weather too, though the country's very mild winters is surely a good selling point.

A most favourable ranking is that for risk and safety, for which Malta gets maximum points. It is not generally appreciated how risk-free life in Malta still is today. Health-wise too, the country gets very high points, even though it has dropped by six points to 88. Still, it ranks in 13th place, a significant ranking and shows a high level of development, despite all the complaints so often levelled at the service. The move to the new hospital will probably help the island regain the points it lost and, maybe, raise its placing higher up the scale. Much will depend now on how the migration plan is handled and how the hospital is run, though an allowance would have to be made for any teething trouble. But, overall, it is a ranking the country ought to be proud of.

It is not understood how the economy fared worse in the index for this year when the figures show it had been improving. Surprisingly, the country gets 87 points for the environment, down from 90 points last year, and, this time unsurprisingly, the infrastructure scores only 37 points, placing the island in 81st place. With the new roads now being built or resurfaced, the index may perhaps improve next year.

The country occupies high places in some aspects of life, and low in others, but the overall ranking is not bad at all. Of course, there is much that has yet to be done to raise standards, but counting our blessings, especially at Eastertide, does not do any harm.