A short time after Malta joined the European Union in 2004, the country was informed it will hold the EU presidency for six months between January and June 2017.
The time has arrived for Malta, as a very small nation state, to lead the EU institutions in the global theatre of world politics. Malta will be leading a big group of nation states with a population of about 500 million people.
It is a great, exceptional and extraordinary opportunity for Malta, with its distinctive characteristics of a millenary civilisation, to show the way among the international community of nations.
This is an opportunity for Malta to be seen leading as a united and not a divided country. It is time for all political forces in Malta to come together in a moral association, to create cooperation, talk together, work side by side and with other EU countries and institutions.
This could be based on reciprocal altruism, which generates and nourishes trust while respecting the freedom, integrity and difference of each. The Malta government, obviously, will act as the first among equals.
The Opposition leader should be given a pivotal and leading role. Like the Prime Minister, he has a wide experience of EU institutions having served as member of the European Parliament for nine years. Similarly the Nationalist Party, which he leads, has had a very wide experience of the EU institutions.
For this to succeed the Opposition leader has to show, very quickly, tangible evidence how he “wants to support Malta’s first EU presidency to ensure it is a success”. This is a declaration he made when EU Commission vice president Frans Timmermans was in Malta lately.
The offer he made during his speech on the 2017 Budget in Parliament to work side by side with the government on the proposed tramway to solve the traffic problem is a case in point.
Restoration of faith in the EU could well mean, as Jonathan Sacks, the British philosopher and recent winner of the Templeton Prize says: “Today the secular West has largely lost the values that used to be called the Judeo-Christian heritage. Instead it has chosen to worship the idols of the self – the market, consumerism, individualism, autonomy, rights and ‘whatever works for you’ – while relinquishing the codes of loyalty, reverence, and respect that once preserved marriages, communities, and the subtle bonds that tie us to one another, moving us to work for the common good.”
Its influence in the Mediterranean Sea, if cultivated properly, may, and should, last much longer than the first six months of 2017
The Templeton Prize honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.
Sacks quotes Bertrand Russell, another British philosopher, saying that: “Creative civilisations find that the liberation from fetters makes individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare floresence of genius, but the decay of morals make them collectively impotent.” He warned that such nations may “fall to nations less civilised than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion”.
The leaders of the other Maltese small political parties also should be given significant and prominent roles during the next EU presidency.
By pure chance Malta is going into this leading role with some very heavy baggage arising from the Panama Papers saga so the substantive appearance of a united nation acting out this leading role is bound to offset the negatve effects just hinted at.
The suggested political style of leadership by a compact of local political forces may, and should, enhance Malta’s (not the political parties’) position as a world actor on the international stage. This role during this brief period can also establish Malta’s position as a central political mediator in the Mediterranean between the nation states of Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Its influence in the Mediterranean Sea, if cultivated properly, may, and should, last much longer than the first six months of 2017.
Pope John Paul II had this to say to one of Malta’s presidents at the Vatican: “Indeed, your geographical position, your history and culture, would seem to confer on your country a special vocation to act as a mediator and promoter of peace in the complex situations affecting the entire area... because Malta has stood at the crossroads of historical development in the Mediterranean region for centuries.”
Is it too late to activate this process ? I don’t think so. Once the will is there the way is invariably found.
The forces of circumstances may well bring it about, if not now some other time. The winds of change seem to be blowing in that direction. The golden opportunity for Malta has arisen. All the politcal forces should go for it, together.
The political forces in Malta have never really been at war with each other. Unity at this particular time is desirable, and achievable.
Towards the end of Malta’s EU presidency, and to show further proof of unity, all political forces and civil society should activate the proposed convention on the Malta Constitution.
Tony Mifsud studied politics and social affairs in Oxford.