The coming weekend is probably the peak holiday weekend in Malta, especially since Monday is a public holiday and an important religious celebration. Therefore my contribution, similar to previous years, will be on a lighter vein and will focus on a number of different considerations rather than a single topic.

Some of them may require some more serious thought and I will return to them in the coming weeks.

Disrupted holidays

Those of us who will be on holiday this coming week, spare a thought for the UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nikolas Sarkozy. Both were on holiday this week and had to return urgently to their job.

The former had to deal with the riots that erupted all over England. The latter had to chair meetings to address the country’s economic situation.

France appears to be the next country to be targeted by the speculators and the credit rating agencies and the French government is seeking to avoid the downgrade from AAA, that was inflicted by Standard & Poor’s on the United States.

Whether France will succeed or not remains to be seen, but the European Central Bank must give serious thought to the idea of setting up an independent credit rating agency of its own.

1961 – 2011

Tomorrow 50 years ago the Russians constructed the Berlin Wall that was to serve as a reminder to all that Europe was a divided continent, and that the Eastern part of Europe was to remain under Communist Russian domination (not influence).

The Berlin Wall was brought down in 1989 and this led to a democratisation process in Eastern Europe, culminating in the expansion of the European Union to 27 member states.

This in turn led to the creation of a community of some 400,000,000 people, with all the resulting challenges and opportunities.

Fifty years ago the instability to the global economy was not brought about by speculators and uncontrolled government spending, but by the threat of a war between the two superpowers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union.

August 6, 1991

An anniversary that nearly went unnoticed was the 20th year since the creation of the WorldWideWeb. This in turn led to the creation of internet, as a community of people that wanted to share their knowledge, even though they were living in different parts of the world.

The development of this technology and its impact on relations between persons is felt on a daily basis and is now taken for granted. However, this technology also revolutionised our economic, commercial and financial relations.

The internet has continued to liberalise markets, probably to an extent that is larger than governments had originally intended. Within such a context the internet has indeed become a market place of its own right and has been instrumental in the creation of very successful businesses, but has also led to the downfall of many others.

IGP

IGP stands for Indikazzjoni Ġeografika Protetta. It is a label normally assigned to foods that evidently originate from a particular region and has unique features. In fact an information item that was aired on the Italian Radio stated that the marine salt produced in the Marsala area is being given the IGP label. This obviously adds value to the product and as such commands a better price. It also exports the label of the region or country where the product is food produced.

My point is that we could have several Maltese products that could earn the IGP label such as tomatoes, cappers, ġbejniet, pastizzi, prickly pears, mqaret, galletti. We must do much more to protect and promote what is Maltese as it will bring economic advantages

Popularity and populism

The disappearance of ideological divides from the political scene (do we still know what is right and what is left?), coupled with a real lack statesmen of a global stature, has led to a search for popularity and vote winning techniques by political leaders around the world. This even seems to please dictators who are willing to go through the motions of a supposed democratic process, using a populist approach.

The end result has been that people in several countries have taken to the streets, as such a populist approach would have envisaged.

However, they have not taken to the streets to cheer their leaders but to protest. Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Greece, the United Kingdom, Italy have all experienced such protests, albeit for different reasons.

For example, with Italy violent protests were held because of the projected opening of a fast railway track in the north western part of the country, while in Egypt it had to do with a demand for true democracy.

One lesson emerges from all these protests – governments have to deliver the economic benefits they promise as there is no more space for sweet talking.

While in Malta

While the world has been debating bond spreads, fiscal deficits, credit ratings, default, economic growth, unemployment, etc, in Malta we have spent the first eight months of this year talking about dogs, divorce, honoraria, bus schedules. It seems that we have been totally oblivious to the economic and financial issues that have beset the rest of the world.

Does this itself represent food for thought? Is the silly season all year round in Malta?