The Today Public Policy Institute recently published a discussion paper, penned by Patrick Tabone, on Malta’s story in the European Union. The title of the discussion paper itself gives a clear message of the impact of the country’s membership of the EU – “how 10 years of EU membership have changed the country”. The covering note accompanying the paper sent to me by Martin Scicluna, director general of the institute, describes this change as remarkable.

I would like to go one step further and describe the change as exceedingly positive. Maybe it is a comment that one could expect from a Europhile like me. I would also understand that there are persons who believe that Malta has changed for the worse since joining the EU. However, by now, I would expect that such opinions are based not on perceptions but rather on facts. Irrespective of how one judges the effects of EU membership, there should be agreement that there are still a number of challenges to be overcome.

From an economic perspective, it is recognised that EU membership and the adoption of the euro have kept our country safe during the international financial and economic crises

Although the writer of the discussion paper has interviewed persons who had not initially shared the same view regarding our country’s membership, he writes that all persons interviewed agree that “as a people we are far less insular, far more open, and less resistant to change than we were just 10 years ago”.

From an economic perspective, it is recognised that EU membership and the adoption of the euro have kept our country safe during the international financial and economic crises. This has also been achieved thanks to our own efforts and decisions.

One key decision was to seek to continue to diversify our productive base across a widening range of economic sectors. We also made sure we did not come to rely on EU funding as the foreign direct investment remained a key pillar of our economic strategy. In terms of EU funding, we made sure that enough investment was poured into enhancing our skills and capabilities in addition to investment in our physical infrastructure.

In effect, maybe this element is the key to understand the positive impact of EU membership on our economy. EU membership alone would not have made our economy resilient to the international turmoil of the last six years. Nor would it have made us resilient to the stronger competition from other countries seeking to attract foreign direct investment like we do.

EU membership on its own could not deliver the results we did as a country.

It required two other players: the private sector and the government. The private sector, and in particular foreign investors, strengthened their belief in Malta, as evidenced by a number of new projects and expansion projects. I would dare say that some of the investment that was attracted to our country in the immediate years prior to EU membership came because of our pending application to join the EU. It gave us a sense of identity we exploited fully.

The second player was the government. The government could easily have made the same mistakes committed by other countries, which misused EU funds by channelling them into investments that gave only short-term returns. The government could very well have become dependent on EU funds as the main source of investment, like other countries did. Such countries suffered bitter consequences when those funds were reduced. The government could also very well have allowed the demise of certain sectors of the economy, just like other countries did. The fact the government did not follow this policy has meant that our economy has been more resilient than that of other countries, when the recession hit the EU.

Thus it needs to be clear in our thinking that the economic success that our country has enjoyed since joining the EU is not only thanks to the opportunities created by EU membership, but also to the ability of the private sector to exploit these opportunities and the appropriate economic strategy followed by the government. As the report of the Today Public Policy Institute rightly points out, “the EU cannot save a member state from itself”.

This brings us to the challenges that we must face up to in the coming years. The document published after the last meeting of the European Council speaks of a number of reforms that need to be implemented EU wide.

Malta is not exempted from such reforms. The need to build a knowledgeable economy requires us to address in a very definitive way the issue of the number of early school leavers. We must address the issue of fiscal imbalance as much as any other country. We also need to address the need to make our welfare and health system sustainable. We may not have an unemployment problem; but we need to get a higher participation rate in the labour market.

All in all, I believe that the discussion paper published by the Today Public Policy Institute is a very useful document that should serve to stimulate the ­discussion on how to maximise fully the benefits that our country can reap from EU membership.