Editorial

It is quite reasonable for people to take any news on oil exploration with a pinch of salt. There have been so many disappointments over the years, so many empty declarations and pies in the sky that people do not even bother to give a second thought to any statement on the state of play in the island's oil exploration drive. Most people are only likely to believe a breakthrough in oil exploration when they see it, that is, when the island actually strikes oil in commercial quantity.

However, politicians have to plod on and keep up their efforts so that Malta may finally strike oil, something that could greatly help improve the island's prospects in development and raise the people's standard of living, which lags greatly behind that in most European Union member countries. Until this stage is reached, if it is reached at all, the country can only live in hope and in frustration caused by the interminable delays involved in settling differences over continental shelf rights. On this score, too, the people's perception is that, despite all the talk and promises of cooperation from countries with which Malta has differences over such rights, the island is being taken for a ride. It is either that or the countries involved have no interest in speeding up work in the bid to come to a conclusion.

Declarations by politicians over the past two years might have led to hopes that Malta and Libya were finally about to make a big step forward in their "cooperation" over oil exploration. Some spoke in terms of breakthroughs and others said that important developments were expected by October. Some time ago, President Eddie Fenech Adami said, following talks with Libya's President, Muammar Gaddafi, that "there was the political will to reach an agreement on how to proceed..." October has now passed and Libya's "political will" appears to have taken a form that is different from that the people were expecting. The expectation was that, by October, the two countries were to make some firm decisions.

It looks that the tangled situation is far from being untangled and that the political will the Libyan government had in mind appears to have less to do with joint exploration than with solving existing differences over rights with Malta, Tunisia and Italy. In fact, Libyan Foreign Minister Al Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said following talks in Malta a few days ago that the problem on the delineation of the maritime border were not directly between his country and Malta but between Malta, Libya and Italy, and Malta, Libya and Tunisia. Libya, he said, was prepared to discuss the issue in detail and it was also prepared to discuss the proposed joint oil exploration.

What this means in practical terms is that there appears to be no end in sight to the problem. This does not mean that the island's programme is at a complete standstill. It is not and, in fact, two wells are now expected to be drilled between 2010 and 2011 in areas that are considered to have greater prospects than others. However, only time will tell if Malta finally manages to strike oil. Meanwhile, there is a far more urgent problem that Libya could help Malta solve, or at least ease, at this point in time: illegal immigration. On this score, Libya has been found badly wanting.