A few days ago, something special happened in Malta. For the first time in our history we assumed leadership of a top-tier international body – the Council of the European Union.

One of the key promises of our presidency is that we will be “putting you at the heart of Europe”. Can the presidency really make a difference to our everyday lives in Malta?

The answer is a resounding yes. All of our priorities over the coming six months have real relevance here at home and here are just some examples. But let’s not lose sight of the significance of the presidency for the Maltese people as a whole.

This is our moment. Some nations might be daunted by the prospect of leading the legislative agenda for a group of 28 states at a time of extreme economic and geopolitical uncertainty but we Maltese are up for the challenge.

We will use our influence to ensure that the EU listens harder to the concerns of its people, gets to grips with the things that are driving some away from collaboration and towards populism or nationalism, and finds new ways to restart and re-energise this project.

This plays straight into our strengths as a nation. Our strategic position in military and trade terms means we have often been buffeted by conflicts not of our own making but have always emerged stronger and wiser from the sometimes profoundly challenging tensions that have arisen between nations and alliances in our neighbourhood and beyond.

This time, we are not just helplessly stuck in the middle of a sea of uncertainty. This time, our firm and steady hand on the tiller gives us a chance to navigate to calmer waters at a time of unique turbulence in the EU and globally.

This is a time for every Maltese citizen to show what we can do when called upon and it will be a time for great individual and collective pride as we show the world that small size does not equate to small achievements.

For example, one of our presidency priorities will be to build on the success of the EU’s greatest accomplishment – the Single Market. This is not just free trade in physical goods and services. There is a Digital Single Market too and we will be working towards the final abolition of the roaming charges we pay whenever we make calls or use data on our smartphones overseas.

Or how about migration? We Maltese know better than most what it means to be on the front line of the wave of migration coming from Africa and the Middle East. So we’ll be pushing the EU very hard to make progress on efforts to share the responsibility more fairly across member states.

Then, of course, there is the area of social inclusion, important to every one of us and, not least, women, who, despite the progress made over the past few decades, are still denied the same access to job opportunities and career paths as men. Thus, measures we will take include driving ahead with the women on company boards agenda with a view to shattering the glass ceiling once and for all. Separately, we will be aiming to promote sharing best practices and information on policies to combat gender-based violence.

In an increasingly troubled world, every Maltese citizen has a strong common interest with those of other EU nations in working towards greater security collaboration and strengthening links with the nations in our southern neighbourhood. This, too, is on the agenda.

Finally, as an island state, Malta is interested in discussing the maritime sector and in working towards growth and competitiveness.

You, your family and your friends will be put back at the heart of Europe. And let’s all rise to the amazing opportunity of the coming six months and repay with pride the trust that has been placed in our nation.

Ian Borg, Parliamentary Secretary for EU funds and 2017 presidency

The presidency is something we have worked so hard for as a nation and it will be a very proud moment for Malta and Gozo and one that needs to be an opportunity for us to show how far we have come since we joined the EU in 2004.

As a Maltese national who believed that Malta’s place is in the EU, and as an MEP, I want the presidency to be a success with the best possible outcome for the country and for Europe. In the coming months, perhaps more than ever before, we need to work on getting the EU closer to the citizen and reaffirming why we need Europe and why the values that make us European must be reaffirmed.

The first six months of this year are crucial for the development of Europe. We need to stop thinking that Europe is some mythical, faraway entity. If the UK referendum taught us anything it is that the EU needs to respond to people’s concerns and that means having more Europe in some areas and less Europe in others. We need to go back to “Europe being big on the big things and small on the small things”, as Jean Claude Juncker aptly put it once.

Europe is facing a difficult time but difficult times are what forged the Europe we know today and I have faith we will emerge stronger than before.

I understand the frustrations that people have with the EU, I share some of them, but I think that having a united, safe Europe makes it worth it. But that is not to say the EU should not reform. It must.

The EU must be there to serve the people and to respond to the needs of the people it serves and not faceless structures and bureaucratic institutions.

We also need to do much more to face down rising populism and populist leaders. It never ceases to amaze me how prime ministers can go to Brussels, agree on a number of laws or initiatives and then go home and blame Europe as if they had no part in it.

The Maltese presidency also comes at a time when the EU’s migration and asylum legislation are being renegotiated. We would be in a position to influence the EU’s direction on this sensitive issue more than at any previous time in the past.

The same goes for issues such as taxation and the need for Malta to remain in charge of its own taxation sovereignty. We are seeing more moves on taxation at EU level that would see Malta disproportionately affected and that is something that the Maltese government heading the presidency should also seek to address.

The political and historical importance of the next six months for Malta is huge. I have never viewed Malta as a small country – while our geographic realities are what they are, we have never had a sense of inferiority and have always managed to live up to all our responsibilities and obligations as an EU member state.

Now we will be leading the EU and it is our responsibility and duty to leave our mark on the European legislative and political landscape. We should not let the opportunity pass us by.

Precisely because the presidency is such a crowning moment in Malta’s recent history, that it is so unfortunate we are entering into the process with the Panama Papers scandal engulfing those at the highest echelons of our government. We have worked too hard, for too long, to allow unscrupulous individuals to cast a shadow over the country at a time when the spotlight is directly on us.

Roberta Metsola, MEP and shadow minister for foreign and European affairs