There are times when we should all focus on the wider national interest and put petty partisan politics aside. The agreement on the EU’s Multi-Annual Framework budget is one such occasion.

EU funds have helped to underpin Malta’s continued development since accession in 2004

This massive negotiation, finally concluded at the latest EU summit, and subject to confirmation by the European Parliament, determines how much Europe will spend over the seven years between 2014 and 2020 and on what and by whom it will be spent.

It is a moment of utmost importance for Malta, both because it determines the course of the European project that we are an integral part of and because it will have a direct impact on our own national budget.

EU funds have helped to underpin Malta’s continued development since our accession in 2004, yet, a combination of factors meant that the net flow of EU funds to Malta was in danger of being seriously cut for the new budgetary period.

Economic crisis in Europe and the current climate of austerity had led to a determined drive by the major contributors to the EU budget for an overall cut. And there was a real danger that not only would there be a smaller budget but that we would only be entitled to a smaller share of it.

Firstly, our rapid development since the last time the EU budget was negotiated meant that we no longer qualified for the most generous funding under what is known as Objective 1, which reserves funds for the least well-off regions of the Union.

Secondly, since the last negotiations for the 2007-2013 EU budget took place, Bulgaria and Romania had acceded to the Union; both large, relatively poor States with significant budgetary needs. Moreover, this budgetary framework also had to take into account the fact that Croatia will accede next year.

Malta, then, risked getting a smaller share of a smaller overall pie, with a potentially drastic impact on our finances.

Successive draft compromises by the Commission and the presidency gave us good cause to worry in this regard. Under the presidency proposal made on November 13, for example, the figure for the indicative overall funds Malta would receive for the coming budgetary period included a massive cut for Malta and, to make matters worse, all the talk prior to the latest European Council meeting was of further cuts.

In this context, it was clear that Malta could not rely on existing provisions of the EU’s budgetary framework – such as Objective 1 status – to ensure a favourable outcome.

The Prime Minister, therefore, orchestrated a concerted diplomatic offensive to ensure that Malta’s specific needs would be addressed. He argued that a small island member State like Malta faced additional challenges that had to be reflected in the budgetary framework of a Union built around the principle of solidarity.

Despite the many distractions he has had to face over the last year and a half, this drive by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and his team has proved highly successful.

We ensured that a sentence was included in the summit conclusions in line with the Treaty of Lisbon recognising “the challenges posed by the situation of island member States”.

This not only helped us improve our financial package for this coming budgetary period but it is a formal recognition by all the member States of the Union of a permanent challenge faced by Malta that we can cite as a precedent in every future EU budget discussion.

Moreover, in financial terms, despite an overall cut in the EU budget and despite all the factors mentioned earlier that pointed to a smaller share of that budget for Malta, the indicative overall funds allocated to this country between 2014 and 2020 are €1.128 billion, higher than we would have got even if we had retained Objective 1 status and a staggering €187 million above the allocation made in the presidency draft compromise of November 13 last year.

This is a legacy of this Government that our country will benefit from well into the long term.

I would expect someone aspiring to be our next Prime Minister in three weeks’ time to be statesmanlike enough to recognise the significance of the occasion and say: “this is a good result for Malta and if I become Prime Minister I will make sure that my government uses these funds fully and wisely.”

If he is not big enough to say that I would expect at the very least a discreet silence. But what do we get from Joseph Muscat instead? The political equivalent of the childish playground taunt “that’s nothing, my daddy is stronger than yours – na na na na na”. I suppose we should be grateful that he avoided his deputy’s (Toni Abela’s that is) vulgar TV intervention on the size of his banana.

With all due respect to Louis Grech, he has not ‘been there, done that,’ as Muscat so flippantly put it. Not even close. To equate being a substitute member of the European Parliament’s Budget Committee, as Grech is, to negotiating in the European Council is presumptuous in the extreme – even if the end result had not been a special status for Malta and increased funds for the next seven years out of a smaller overall EU budget.

The Maltese word prużuntuż says it even better. The danger is not that he doesn’t know it all; it’s that he thinks he does.

Congratulations to the Prime Minister and everyone involved in securing this excellent result for Malta.

And a call to everyone to ensure that, come March 9, we do not replace, at the head of our country’s government, Gonzi’s proven results with Muscat’s childish T-shirt slogans.

Francis Zammit Dimech is Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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