Gozo still secured the best possible financial package from the EU, regardless of the European Commission saying it was not eligible for special treatment, Giovanna Debono said yesterday.
The former Gozo minister was reacting to criticism from the Labour government over the fact that the former Nationalist administration had never made a 2012 Commission report on Gozo public. This in spite of the fact that the PN was suggesting Gozo should be treated as a special economic “region”.
According to the study, whose existence was revealed last week, Gozo was too close to the ‘mainland’ to qualify as a special economic region and tap additional funds.
The economic and social hurdles faced by Gozitans to cross the five kilometre-channel to Malta were relatively “negligible” when compared with those faced by inhabitants of other EU islands.
Contacted by Times of Malta, Ms Debono yesterday argued that the bottom line was that in 2013 former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had negotiated a deal through which the Maltese islands had remained an ‘Objective 1’ country and so qualified for the maximum level of funding.
The Nationalist government, she added, had committed itself to allocate one tenth of the €1.18 billion EU budget specifically to Gozo. However, Gozo’s constituted bodies have sought assurances over the report, expressing concern that it might still have negative repercussions regarding EU funding.
In its initial reaction, the Gozo Business Chamber questioned the reliability of the study and cast doubts on crucial statistics such as those on Gozo’s population.
“We cannot be persuaded by this report that Gozo’s gross domestic product has reached the same level as Malta’s,” Chamber president Michael Grech said.
We cannot be persuaded by this report thatGozo’s gross domestic product has reached the same level as Malta’s
“Did the study also include those people living permanently in Malta, whose ID card is on a Gozo address so as to benefit from cheaper ferry rates?”he asked.
He pointed out that the reliability of statistics about Gozo had been a perennial problem which at times resulted in “misleading” data.
In this case, he said, the size of the population was crucial for the calculation of Gozo’s GDP, which was one of the main economic indicators.
Even some of the fiscal data was questionable as large companies with their head office in Malta did not treat their operations in Gozo separately when it came to tax and VAT.
He also made the case that people doing the same work in Malta and Gozo might be getting paid less on the sister island.
The chamber intends to seek assurances from the government that Gozo will not be placed at a disadvantage due to this study. These points would also be raised directly with the Commission, the chamber said.
Mr Grech also lamented the fact that the chamber had not been consulted at any stage during the compilation of the study.
In this respect he welcomed the call made by Gozo Minister Anton Refalo that a separate statistics office should be established for the sister island, to be able to get a good picture of the situation.
The Gozo Tourism Association said that, even though successive governments had pledged to allocate 10 per cent of EU funds to Gozo, there were no statutory or mandatory obligations to enforce such a commitment for the future.
GTA CEO Joe Muscat also made the point that the mechanism envisaged in the Accession Treaty, to obtain special treatment if Gozo was lagging behind Malta in economic and social terms, had never been triggered.
He said the tourism sector in Gozo had supported EU accession as it was common belief that the island’s constraints stemming from its double insularity could be addressed.