EU membership has not been all bad for Maltese workers, General Workers' Union general secretary Tony Zarb admitted yesterday.
However, he has no regrets about the anti-EU position which the union held against Malta's EU membership, Mr Zarb told The Times yesterday.
"We looked at the situation at the time and voiced our opinion based on that," he said.
The GWU was among the most vociferous critics of EU accession and had published numerous reports outlining the risks of joining the bloc. In 2001, the union's delegates had approved a motion saying that accession carried more disadvantages than advantages for workers and pensioners.
But yesterday Mr Zarb said not all was doom and gloom - the EU had even brought some positive results.
"The EU is making us more conscious of health and safety at work and the funds for workers' training are also positive," he said when asked to mention some positive results.
Mr Zarb said there were also workers who had been badly affected by EU accession, including dock workers and the employees of a number of factories which have since closed down.
He would not be drawn into saying whether the impact of EU accession was mostly negative or positive, insisting the situation was mixed.
"There were areas where we were positively affected and areas where we were negatively affected."
However, he said, Malta still had to learn to make the most of membership.
The union had been heavily criticised for holding the deciding conference before a number of reports which it had commissioned on the impact of EU membership were completed. Some of the reports commissioned by the union had determined that EU accession would be positive for the island.
Yesterday the GWU presented proposals to MEP hopefuls, calling on them to safeguard workers' interests in the European Parliament.
The five pages of recommendations call on the MEPs to vote against laws which could undermine workers' rights, work for better working conditions and to control outsourcing and definite contracts which could lead to worse working conditions.
The union has also called for more work to safeguard the rights of foreign workers which are sometimes exploited.
It also called for action to protect local consumers, adding that the government was not honouring its obligations with consumers. He later told The Times that the authorities should push for the setting up of a strong consumer organisation, which would however be independent of the government.