'Effective participation' in core group's first meeting in Meusac

The core group of the newly formed Malta-EU Steering and Action Committee (Meusac) met for the first time yesterday, seeing "effective and active participation by representatives", Meusac head Vanni Xuereb said.

Dr Xuereb explained how the consultation process was, so far, a positive and successful one which, he believes, will lead to concrete and effective recommendations being made to decision makers.

Prior to Malta's accession to the European Union, Meusac was a platform for debate between the government, Malta's political parties, and civil society in general. Meusac will now be engaged in coordinating the process of consultation on EU legislation and Malta's role in various EU structures, as well as promoting debate on EU issues.

The consultation process is to be managed by the core group which is formed of representatives drawn from the government, political parties, constituted bodies, non-governmental organisations and experts from various sectors, amongst them a legal expert on EU legislation.

Dr Xuereb said he was positive, but still remained realistic, as he could already see various limitations to what the core group could achieve. Amongst such limitations, Dr Xuereb explained, was the problem with representation of non-governmental organisations. For Meusac to be an effective stage for debate, "one cannot have so many organisations from the same sector."

To address this issue, one of the first decisions taken by the core group was to assign a committee to recommend criteria and methods by which NGOs can be accepted and formed into a subcommittee, he said. Three representatives will eventually be drawn from this subcommittee to take their place on the core group itself.

He expressed the hope that the three NGO representatives would be able to take their place on the core group committee by the next meeting.

Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said, who is the Meusac chairman, echoed Dr Xuereb's statement that the meeting went "very well".

The comments which he received from members, he said, were all very positive, especially on the importance of the reformation of Meusac following the "positive experiences of the pre-accession body and subsequently also with Forum Malta Fl-Ewropa.

Mr Said said the committee debated various issues, amongst them being the consultative process itself, as well as the financial and human resources available to Meusac through which it could fulfil its main objective, that being, to act as a forum for consultation. When the Maltese government takes its place in EU structures, it would base itself on the consultation undertaken through the committee.

Mr Said explained that he was confident that the core group would achieve this objective, given the calibre and quality of the representatives which were present on the committee and which afforded the committee a significantly wide representation.

The core group's primary two priorities are to determine the most effective mechanism for the consultation process, and to establish the various sectoral committees.