Issues in Malta are often inflated to a degree that boggles the mind. This is, of course, not being said in reference to controversies over some major projects, such as the extension of the power plant at Delimara or the planned development of the White Rocks, both of which have, quite justifiably, sparked a lot of criticism against the government. This is about the appointment of the employers' representative on a Brussels-based civil society committee and to that over Forum's claim for representation on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development. The first issue should not have arisen at all and the second ought to be settled in no time as it has now been dragging for quite a long time. Both are anomalies.
As to the first, what stands out is the employers' organisation decision to withdraw from the MCESD over the issue. Its feelings are quite understandable and a strong protest would have been quite in order but to decide to withdraw from the council is unwise. Briefly, the organisation, the Malta Employers' Association, argues that it should have been the one to be appointed on the European Economic and Social Committee not the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises - GRTU.
Without in any way doubting the capability of Vince Farrugia, the GRTU's director general, to represent the employers on the committee, it is quite strange that the Cabinet chose a representative from the GRTU rather than the MEA to sit on the EESC. It is the MEA, not the GRTU, that is generally seen as the representative body of employers. The government's decision is, therefore, not understood. But then, the government has been making a number of moves that are not quite understood or which have raised eyebrows.
The argument made by Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said, that the appointees were selected by the Cabinet according to the practice used in previous years, is weak. The practice is clearly wrong and the MEA, which claims it has been consistently bypassed, has every right to protest and keep on insisting that it is the MEA, not the GRTU, that ought to represent the employers on the committee, which it considers as important to it because, it said, it is the main European social dialogue platform. But for the MEA to go on from such stand to boycott the MCESD is wrong.
As it is also wrong to exclude from the MCESD the new body of 11 trade unions that has come to represent no fewer than 12,000 members. Various arguments, for and against, have been put but, taking the matter in its proper perspective, it is hardly reasonable to exclude such an organisation from the council, no matter how the new organisation has originated, the differences that led to prominent unions leaving the Confederation of Trade Unions, or, even more so, to any consensual arrangement that had been agreed upon by the original members when the council was set up.
Circumstances have changed and it would simply not make sense for the Forum to be excluded from the council, which is, after all, an advisory body. The opposition has now presented a motion in Parliament calling for the Forum to be become a member of the council. One of its arguments is that the workers are under-represented.
The issue over the MEA's representation on the Brussels council and that over the representation of the Forum on the MCESD ought to be settled without further ado.