Different audiences... different stories

Browsing the European Parliament website I happened to find an interview with one of my colleagues from the opposition regarding the euro changeover in Malta. The answers bemused me and this because I believe that the response to the same questions, had they been asked in Malta by a Maltese journalist, would have been somewhat different.

In this interview my esteemed colleague underlines the success Malta obtained in achieving the Maastricht criteria. This is a far cry from Labour's reprobation that Malta has repeatedly failed to achieve the desired levels in economic and financial performance. Labour even went as far as to say that any successful results were just momentary and not sustainable.

My counterpart also mentioned the excellent job done by the NECC. Again, we have a disparity here as Labour criticised the government's idea to transform NECC into an agency and described it as a ploy to create posts for blue-eyed boys. These are cheap tricks meant to obscure the good work done in view of the euro adoption, tactics that do not work anymore and, if anything, only undermine the credibility of those who resort to them.

When the Malta Labour Party's MEP was questioned on how the run up was handled by the authorities he answered that both the awareness campaign and the technical details dealing with the change went exceptionally well. Yet, the Leader of the Opposition decided to mock the Prime Minister and compared a technical fault to the government's promises on delivering, thus disagreeing with the views of his understudy.

It takes nerve to make such a statement and, moreover, expect your listeners to believe you. If there is anyone who failed to deliver it was the Leader of the Opposition himself when he served as Prime Minister and his Cabinet, not the Nationalist Administration, which in 20 years of government managed to change our country from a semi communist run-down state into an important business hub and a relevant country not only in the Mediterranean but also in Europe.

It takes nerve and impudence to dismiss the achievements of the Prime Minister and call him incompetent when results show otherwise and one one's track record is a never-ending list of failure after failure, starting from the uneventful story of Metalfond, his first election as leader of the Malta Labour Party all the way to the fall of his government in 1998. Now that is what I call inaptitude. Taking a country from relative mediocrity to Europe, negotiating packages worth €850 million with the European Union and giving the right direction to guide the economy to achieve the Maastricht criteria and, thus, adopt the euro is a completely different picture to the one the Leader of the Opposition is trying to portray to his faithful.

Listening to the Socialist leader criticising our education system during his comeback speech at the MLP general conference last Sunday brought to my mind a social event I had organised for my mentor, Guido de Marco which we had named Ħadd M'Għandu Dritt Jinsa, loosely translated Lest you should forget and, indeed, we should not forget. It takes all the preposterousness in the world to criticise the Nationalist government on education when we have state-of-the-art schools, almost 10,000 students attending university and many openings in any subject under the sun.

I am sure the Opposition Leader does not easily forget and I am sure that phrases like numerus clausus and the 20 points are still fresh in his memory for these were the times when he was president of the Malta Labour Party. I am also confident that he also recalls the conflict regarding the Church schools and the beating of the Upper Lyceum students by Labour thugs. If someone had to ask me, I'd answer straight away I'd rather have to wait a few weeks for a photocopier than relive those times.

With all due respect, the Malta Labour Party is the entity which should least dwell in making comparisons as they might get a nasty surprise when they see their achievements balance in the red.

I finish with a quote from the Labour leader: "The only thing that makes them (the PN) stick together is their craving for sticking to power".

Ironically this is the same person that lost two general elections and a referendum and is still clinging to power... Lest we forget.

Mr Casa is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.