Two weeks ago, the European Union published data on unemployment for the 27 member states.

It shows the EU in a difficult economic situation, which may lead some people to think that this is not the land of milk and honey.

Well, the EU is not the land of milk and honey and it never portrayed itself that way, nor was it portrayed this way in the run-up to the referendum on membership in 2003.

The EU is a grouping of states that has grown over five times in size in terms of population since its inception and Malta’s membership of this grouping helped us to reap economic, social and political benefits that have been far greater than the costs we have incurred.

It would be very naïve to look at the EU’s problems today (the sovereign debt problems of some countries, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth) in isolation and seek to conclude that the EU is not working.

On the other hand, the fact that, even during last year (when the sovereign debt problem became critical), the value of the euro remained stable against the other major currencies, shows that the EU is working.

Within this scenario, the Maltese economy has continued to perform relatively well even if we have had some hiccups and has continued to enjoy the benefits of EU membership.

We need to remember initiatives such as the developments in our road infrastructure, the investment in education, the opportunities given to students to develop further their knowledge, the restoration of our heritage sites, the lifelong learning programmes, the support to the agricultural and fisheries sector, the promotion of research and development initiatives.

None of these and other initiatives would have been possible without the funds Malta received.

To achieve all this without EU funding would have meant having to give up on other things such as health, education, pensions and social security.

This has not made us immune from international economic developments. I would even dare say that we have become victims of our own success.

The more international investment we have attracted, the more open our economy has become.

The more open our economy becomes, the more vulnerable we are to what happens beyond our shores.

Therefore we needed to mitigate our vulnerability and this we have achieved by having a diversified economy, balanced between the manufacturing sector and its supporting activities and the services sector.

However, no matter how much we mitigate this vulnerability, we can never become immune.

This lack of immunity has shown itself in the data of the gross domestic product for the last quarter on 2011, with a minimal drop 0.6 per cent.

On the other hand, the data on unemployment published by the European Commission shows a resilient economy, that is doing well in the face of all the challenges it had to face.

Unemployment in the European Union was 10.2 per cent in February this year, while it was 10.8 per cent in the eurozone.

Unemployment in Malta was 6.8 per cent. This makes us the fifth lowest in the EU.

We are therefore faced with a situation where we have started to feel the negative impact of the recession in other countries but not to the extent that is wreaking havoc in our economy.

This would mean that there are no grounds for complacency. We need to strive harder to continue reaping the benefits of EU membership.

The EU will not stop us from making wrong decisions and will not save us from ourselves.

It will support us but we will have to pay the consequences of our own mistakes, like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland.

As we complete our eighth year of EU membership on May 1, we can afford to look back with satisfaction to our decision to join, as we are certainly a better country than we were in 2004.