Should Malta be taking part in the provision of bail-out loans to Greece, even if we were allowed to opt out under EU arrangements? In a rare exhibition of consensus the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition say we should. That is not to say there are no nuances of division in their common ground.

The Prime Minister as much as implies that a Labour administration would send Malta along the disastrous Grecian path. The opposition leader links agreement with other EU members to help Greece to the issue of the boat people landing Malta. He implies that Malta should link the two issues and press for far more assistance with the situation whereby the EU is only taking token numbers of boat people.

Politics has to be played according to its rules. And the most common of those rules is attack, attack, attack. The late Ian Macleod, a renowned Conservative personality in the UK, used to say that the role of the opposition is to oppose. The rule written in stone in Maltese politics is that each day must see each major party deepening the divide between it and the other side.

If the opposition of the day opposes so consistently that, if you close your eyes, you tend to fudge which party is sitting there, similarly the government of the day practically sees nothing at all worthy in the body of souls that make up the opposition.

Various contributions to the letter columns and to the growing blogs indicate that not all the Maltese people are behind their political leaders on this one. Some ask whether Malta can afford the loans she is subscribing to. Others warn that, given the possibility that Greece will default on all its loans, we should not risk our scarce financial resources.

Those who argue in this manner are being somewhat jingoistic, but they are not spouting nonsense. Our government is wrong in implicitly suggesting that Greek’s troubles are due to the fact that it is run – if run it is – by a Socialist administration. George Papandreou’s party inherited the present mess, so it is not fair to pin that upon it.

Yet the reality is that the mess has been long in the making, under various administrations. It is how it came about that is of relevance to Malta. That is not to say that the risk to our loan money is not relevant. There are many economists, including erudite ones like Samuel Brittan of The Financial Times, who hold that, eurozone/IMF loans or no loans, Greece will eventually have to leave the eurozone. It will go back to its old drachma, which will immediately drop in value like a stone thrown into in a well.

That is the risk for Malta and other lenders to Greece. The lesson lies elsewhere. Greek’s socioeconomic history is littered with mistakes. Unit labour costs, for instance, have risen by 50 per cent since 2001. This, commented Samuel Brittan on June 24, compares with a eurozone average of about 25 to 30 per cent, and a German cost increase of little more than six per cent. Even Portugal had a much lower increase than Greece, at some 36 per cent.

Labour costs have been on the up and up in Malta, as shown in the recent study by Prof. Joseph Falzon. That happened even as the share of employees’ compensation barely kept up with the rate of inflation. That is a warning that needs more focus by our political leaders than jibes at socialism or poor negotiating regarding boat people and refugee-seekers.

Another old Greek shortcoming is that they had been cooking the statistics for years. That was why, many critics hold, Greece was allowed to join the EU. It did so on false pretences. Its economy was not ready for the rigid competition with the EU. Moreover, membership of the eurozone and adoption of the euro no longer allowed Greece to devalue its currency to make up for comparatively high labour and other costs.

The economy also suffered from rigidities which have not been corrected through membership. To coat all that with venom, corruption in Greece has been rampant for many years.

Take away partisan glasses and ask: do we have any of all that in Malta? And the worrying answer is that, yes, we do. We had better say: There, but for the grace of God, go we, rather than striking poses and feeling superior to our Mediterranean brethren.

There can be no doubt that our social structure and the economy compare very well with the dismal Greek picture. But we have much further to go before we can be as comfortable as the Prime Minister makes us out to be. To reiterate a frequent assertion of mine, now given more substance by Prof. Falzon’s deep analysis, we have a sharply segmented economy, one part doing well, driven by the on-line gambling sector and financial services, another doing not at all well, including the construction and property sectors.

Let us help the Geeks both out of comradeship and solidarity, and also for the more hard-nosed reason that if Greece sinks the eurozone will do much worse than wobble, as it has been doing, and we too shall be badly hit by the resulting disruption and uncertainty. But let us squeeze out partisanship from our agreement to help and instead learn the many lessons that should be learned.