The leading employers associations in Malta have called on Malta’s future MEPs to set up better communication channels to ensure that national interests are promoted.
The Malta Business Bureau, Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, the Malta Chamber for Commerce, Industry and Enterprise, the Malta Employers’ Association and the GRTU said the MEPs elected in May needed to ensure that they maintained regular contact with the local constituted bodies, their European counterparts, MEPs of other nationalities and the Maltese Parliament.
Locally, the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development was identified as being a potential forum for regular debriefings with MEPs.
The document, the first of its kind, was put together on the initiative of the European Parliament’s information office in Malta, and sums up the main points submitted individually by the organisations.
However, a trend come across very clearly – the need for MEPs to be proactive to ensure that Malta’s interests are heard, especially since its SMEs are often affected by legislation that has been shaped by the interests of big business, who use the services of some 25,000 lobbyists in Brussels.
The manifesto was presented during a conference attended by several MEP candidates and one incumbent, Roberta Metsola.
Presenting the initiatives being taken at EU level, Joanna Drake, from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, spoke about the efforts to reduce the regulatory burden on SMEs through a process of simplification of rules. She also referred to funding programmes aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and helping businesses access new markets.
“We have to give entrepreneurs a second chance if they fail,” she said, remarking also that Europe lacks business role models who young people could aspire to emulate.
Main areas of manifesto
• A balance between harmonisation at European level on one hand, where this adds value to the market, and subsidiarity and proportionality on the other hand. Malta’s insularity and peripheral position should be acknowledged by European policymakers.
• Need for smarter regulation, less bureaucracy, and more trust in business as the motor of economy.
• Promote competitiveness and secure economic prosperity through focus on wealth creation, before wealth distribution.
• Face global competition through better human development and skills matching, the strengthening of links between academia and industry, and more investment in research and development.
• More productive employment and a less regulated labour market which acknowledges adequate employees’ rights without discouraging employment.
• Rather than being seen as ‘precarious employment’, part-time, definite contracts and temping should be seen as job creation.
• In Europe as well as locally, social and environmental priorities are often allowed to overtake economic ones.