When, some years ago, the social partners failed to knock into shape a social pact within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, many, including one Cabinet minister, had described the council as a mere talking shop. However, that description is somewhat mild next to what the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has now called it.

This is how it defined the social partners’ forum in its latest document setting out its economic vision for Malta: “It is with regret that the Malta Chamber concludes that the MCESD in its latest guise is a rudderless, irrelevant and inconsequential national institution.”

There can hardly be a more categorical statement of the advisory council’s ineffectiveness than this.

So far, there has been no public reaction to the Chamber’s views about the MCESD, at least in the form it is operating today, a matter that could well indicate that its views may well be shared by most other council members.

In describing the council as rudderless, irrelevant and inconsequential, the Chamber said that this “is a sad state of play which demands urgent attention as the MCESD, if given true independence and autonomy, is well equipped, resourced, and directed, is an essential institution for the attainment of non-partisan approach to economic and social development”.

All these matters have been raised before but there does not seem to have been enough willingness to make the council more effective so that it can play a proper role in the efforts to meet existing and new challenges, such as the need to ensure that the island’s advantages as an investment location are not eroded. This is a real, not perceived, challenge, one that needs to be taken up with urgency if this country is to hold its own in the greater competitive environment that is developing today following the financial crisis and subsequent recession.

Lack of consensus among social partners is often mentioned as a stumbling block within the council but, as employers once remarked in a position paper, if the MCESD’s role is that of a consultative body, then consensus should not be a necessary condition for its effectiveness. A more realistic approach, the employers had said, would seek to achieve convergence among the social partners, not consensus.

Employers have their own views on how the council could be made more effective. What would greatly help in turning the council into a more effective body is a change in attitude among council members. While, as members, they represent the organisations they come from, they should adopt a more national approach when they are actually in session in the council.

It has often happened that members are far too inclined to protect their turf, exhibiting unwillingness to show that kind of flexibility so necessary for parties holding different views to compromise. The Chamber’s outburst ought not to be allowed to fall by the wayside. On the contrary, it should now take the lead and see whether there is enough interest among members to set the ball rolling to restructure the council.

With so many interests and disparate organisations involved, including the government, this will not be easy, but it is worth taking up.

If other members feel, like the Chamber, that the council has become a rudderless, irrelevant and inconsequential institution, it is in the interest of all that it does not remain so for, otherwise, it will continue to reflect badly on them all. They ought to be capable of turning it into a body that could make a sound contribution.