Let’s talk about the future
We need to talk about the future. If we do not, others will do it for us.
A few days ago, a European summit took place in Brussels where our future was being discussed by EU leaders, including Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
True, many of us may have been distracted by the Euro 2012. As EU leaders met in Brussels, Italy was kicking the hapless Germany out of the football tournament. Spain had already thrown Portugal out the night before and then went on to prove that it does not take a great economy to make a great football team. The irony of the success of the Mediterranean football prowess could not be sweeter.
In Malta, we had other distractions too. But we would do well to focus on what is truly essential. And Europe’s future is our future and, therefore, what happened in Brussels on the night of Germany’s football demise is of interest for us too.
We ignore it at our own peril. For unless we have a clear vision for our future, we can hardly feel reassured of our future and that of our children.
In essence, there were two important points to note from the summit.
The first is an agreement on stronger action for growth and jobs. A so-called Compact For Growth And Jobs was agreed, in part to give the new French President, François Hollande, something to take home after his recent election.
It did not include a revision of the new fiscal treaty, as he wanted. Instead, a list of measures were decided to bolster growth through action taken both at national and at European level. They range from the reaffirmation of the single market as the key instrument for growth to more and better financing through the European Investment Bank, through EU funds and through new European “project bonds” meant to finance major transport, energy and broadband infrastructure.
The second and the more important item in terms of where we are heading was the report entitled Towards A Genuine Economic And Monetary Union that was up for discussion.
This document, which is short and very readable, proposes the construction of what is essentially a political union in Europe, through four building blocks, over the next decade.
The proposal is overtly intended to include eurozone countries because they are already the most deeply integrated. And that includes us. So let’s have a quick look at these four building blocks that can take us to a political union.
The first is the integration of the financial framework. This means that there would be a banking union, which would ensure a single European banking supervision and stronger common rules on the protection of depositors.
The second is a more integrated budgetary framework. This means the establishment of a fiscal union, including a European Treasury, which will ensure that countries keep their financial house in order and stick to their commitment on their annual budgets, on their public deficits and on their public debts.
They will no longer be able to adopt unsustainable budgets that do not add up and this will put paid, once and for all, to politicians who think they can promise heaven on earth without having any idea of where they will get the money. In other words, promises by the likes of Joseph Muscat will be unmasked for what they really are: hot air.
On the basis of these fiscal guarantees, the issuance of common debt is also envisaged because there will no longer be any scope for moral hazard.
The third is a more integrated economic policy framework, which means that economic policies, whether on employment or taxation, will become ever more closely coordinated.
Note, by the way, that tax coordination does not mean tax harmonisation. We often confuse this in Malta but tax is not even harmonised in the US, let alone in Europe.
The fourth – and most politically sensitive – building block is the political aspect, that is how to ensure that the decisions taken in the first three blocks are legitimate and democratic decisions that are subject to the scrutiny of elected representatives.
But it also means that the entire process must require public support. In other words, no country and no nation will be forced into this union. That is for each country to decide, including us.
Although couched in diplomatic and cautious language, the document is nothing short of a road map to a political union. Indeed, that same week, the vice president of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, wrote in all national newspapers, including The Times, calling for a strong European political federation.
Asked for my reaction to her call by this newspaper, I stated that this is the next big vision that politicians in Malta too should have. For it is the road to the lasting stability and prosperity that I would like my own country too to share.
We shall see which ones will rise to the occasion.
Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.
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William Caligari
Jul 19th 2012, 13:15
Dr. Busittil,
Il-futur nibza minnu, ghaliex?
Din is-sena ta' krizi fil-Gvern, nara dan ix-xenarju.
Forsi bhal hafna esponenti tal-Gvern ma taqbelx mieghi, meta nghid "krizi"
Nghaddu mela xi rridt nghid.
Politikament is-sena 2012 kienet wahda hi kif inhi,bhala amministrazzjoni
voldieri "gejja elezzjoni" jew le'?
Ma ttiehdux decizzjonijiet li jwegghu lil poplu;
Normalment dan dejjem gara sena qabel kull elezzjoni;
Qeghdin f' ricessjoni;
Hemm l'weghda ta' l-income-tax;
Wara jigri li hekk kif jitla partit fil-Gvern, jibda s-swat;
Hekk tigi l-mistoqsija; Let's talk about the future.
F'dan ix-xenarju Dr Busittil qed tara "futur sabih"?
Jien nghid li l-politici ghandhom ikunu,nies li jaghmel unur f'dak
li jghid.
Jessica Smith
Jul 19th 2012, 00:18
Sure Simon, our future out of the EU.
Jesmond Micallef
Jul 18th 2012, 23:38
On finances (or what else really........)
Bail out loans make potholes flush with the surface once again, alright, and such quick fixes do just that. What happens after remains to be seen. It's like going back to zero from a negative and rebuilding once again to get into the positive !
Jesmond Micallef
Jul 19th 2012, 19:59
MEP Simon Busuttil should remember quite well former EU Commisioner Günter Verheugen, who today lectures at Frankfurt an der Oder. He wrote a very good piece in the "Außenansicht" of the SDZ of Munich a few days ago. Perhaps, MEP Simon Busittil should read it !
Anyway, so once national debt is paid by the EU member state, would such country then be considered as "Developing" ? Would this require further financial packages ................ ?
Alex Ellul
Jul 18th 2012, 23:22
While is imperative that we talk about the future, it is also very important, if not more important, to talk about the past. We cannot move into the future without knowledge of our history, otherwise we are bound to repeat the same mistakes all over again, which is not what we want, do we?
Those men who in the years just passed were and still are running the EU's economic policies must first be removed. We cannot go into the future with those persons who ruined the present by creating the wrong policies in the past. We need new men and woman who can get uus out of this rut by employing different policies.
What the current leaders are proposing to 'solve' the Euro's and the Eurozone's problems is just:
Print billions Euros and go running fast with it to the banks.
But this will only create more suffering. It will create rampany inflation. making the Rothschilds richer and richer and the people poorer and poorer.
It is being predictedt that the price of gold will reach $2,300 an ounce because of this inflation. This does not mean that gold will be more expensive, but that the dollar and the Euro will have lost quite a big chunk of their value and our bank savings would have been reduced too. the difference in that value, that is, the value of one's money in the bank now and after the silent devaluation is ALL PROFIT TO THE BANKS.
GL Calleja
Jul 18th 2012, 16:53
Simon Busuttil one should take care of the present before he ventures into the future.
Alex Ellul
Jul 18th 2012, 15:37
Even way back in 2008, yes, 5 years ago, there were a few courageous EU MP's who were warning Barroso and Van Rompuy about the signs of those times, the writing on the wall, and what will happen if things were not changed. Things were not changed and now, what these few Euro MP's were warning us about has materialised.
Some foreign journalists have found the cause of the Euro crisis not in bad planning, but in what is happening now as having been planned for by the current EU cabal with the scope of forcing the EU member states into a fiscal union, one single central bank, one EU parliament and states like Malta reduced to the level of a municipality.
But nobody actually wants this. Cameronhas even mentioned a referendum on the UK's EU's membership. All EU countires' citizens are against this plan and we'd rather see the EU crash than becoming a non-entity in a superstate.
C. Bonnici
Jul 18th 2012, 15:05
This is a crucial step towards "globalisation". The question is, however, what does globalisation mean?
Alex Ellul
Jul 18th 2012, 14:47
Today's EU is financially bankrupt. The reason/s for this have been evaluated and discussed by many a politician, economist and financial journalist. But as who is reponsible for this financial meltdown out of which noone can see a way, nobody is discussing. Who in the EU bureaucracy is responsible for this? Who is that politician/bureaucrat on whose desk the buck stops?
As I se it, nomatter what we do, make the EU one superstate, or roll some of it back, mo matter what we do, first we must be sure that whoever caused this, the catastrophic policies that were adopted must be thrown out of the window together wih their policy makers.
We must see at least a few heads rolling before we start believing that the situation can improve.
This not the Europe that we had voted for. This not the Europe that I remember. The Europe that I remeber was, rich, full of employment, and ploiticians were thinkers. The Europe I remember was a real community of nations and not a super bureaucracy burning billions of euros to feed itself while making it's citizens ever the poorer.
Mary Mills
Jul 18th 2012, 14:26
The ECB should not, itself, be in charge of an EZ banking regulatory authority; that,as prominent economists argue, would further lessen the ECB's own credibility. Indeed, Mario Draghi himself has intimated that Regulators should not only be independent of banks but that they, in turn, be seen to be accountable.
Certain EZ members still need bailouts yet the ESM, the supposedly-permanent bailout fund, its legitimacy (non-infringement of German sovereignty) is still to be argued in the German Constitutional Court - and no ruling before the middle of September - contrary to glib political pronouncements that the ESM was to come into being beginning of July!
François Hollande may have set himself up as prefect (as in school) for club Med class still with attitude of, 'we're all equal, but some are more equal than others - me and Angie, actually'. So, re fiscal matters, reining-in by Brussels have involved only insolvent or nearly-so EZ members gathering around Hollande - the ones (PIIGS) that most need to provide jobs, especially for their young people but canNot.
Theory and abstract (such as 'growth')
James Dimech
Jul 18th 2012, 10:18
Whilst village politicians like Joseph Muscat put the country's focus on JPO, RCC and soap operas, Simon Busuttil talks about the issues that really matter.
Enough said.
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