Alfred Formosa asks (A Responsible Way To Bridge The Gap To Gozo, April 18) whether I’m aware that some Gozitans have to commute daily to Malta, whether I’m “mindful of the fact” that there are Gozitan students at University and whether I am au courant with the Gozitan economy. The answer to all three questions is: yes.
I am also aware that Gozitans don’t care much for travelling; lots of them haven’t even been to the other side of their own island (I suspect that applies to many south-islanders, too). Chief among the places Gozitans don’t like to go to is Malta – there are probably more who have been to Melbourne or New York than to Valletta.
But the world has moved on from the days when most people worked in, and rarely left, the village in which they were born. Most workers in the developed world now commute daily and in the rest of Europe an hour or so in each direction is by no means an unusual amount of time spent getting to work.
Mr Formosa does me a disservice when he accuses me of “denigrating anything related to our islands”.
That’s not true. What I occasionally remark upon is the basic daftness or apparent lack of logic or awareness that one sees here. And one of these outrageous notions held by the Maltese is that, having joined the EU, the rest of the continent owes them a living.
Who is paying for renovating the Villa Rundle Gardens? The citizens of the rest of Europe. Who will pay for the tunnel, if it’s ever built? Oh – the rest of Europe, of course.
Why anybody thinks that the already overtaxed residents of, say, Manchester, Marseille or Munich should fund a park in Gozo or a tunnel to Malta is, frankly, beyond me. But it happens, and will continue to happen – chiefly because nobody ever asks them how and where they’d prefer their money to be spent. (It may also be because the majority of member nations – including Malta, of course – take far more out of the EU than they contribute, and they all want to be on board the gravy train.) Students, meanwhile, should not be making a daily commute. Part of the richness of a university education is – or (outside of Malta) has always been supposed to be – the experience of living away from home; an opportunity to grow up. Universities are not a nine to five job; students should spend time among their peers, learning from each other, arguing with each other, possibly sharing different cultures and trying to become self-sufficient. They shouldn’t be returning home every night or even every weekend so that Mum can feed them and do their laundry.
As to the Gozitan economy – the provision of a fixed link (tunnel, bridge or whatever) will end the need to bring industry to the island, and certainly remove any necessity to provide better facilities (including hospital treatment) here. Greater access will mean that nothing new is needed in Gozo because everything will be within easy reach… in Malta.
The tourist economy will also suffer. Holidaymakers will stay on the south island where there’s a greater choice of hotels and more to do, and if they visit Gozo they’ll return every night. With fewer overnighting tourists (including those from Malta) we might also risk losing the few decent restaurants we currently have here. Even those safari jeeps and tour buses would start on the south side and travel across; they wouldn’t employ drivers or buy fuel on Gozo.
A fixed link, therefore, is not the simple solution to all the island’s shortcomings. Rather, the additional cost of using it will doubtless become just the latest excuse for keeping prices high.
If Mr Formosa wants a “fixed link” he should put his money where his mouth is and find 500 or so like-minded people willing to cough up a million euros each. That might cover it.
But imagine... suppose a bridge or a tunnel were to be built, and suppose life didn’t immediately improve on this island… what’s the next brainwave on the agenda?