During this week, the social partners in Italy started discussions on how to strengthen the competitiveness of firms operating in Italy. They are discussing a plan prepared by the Italian government. Nothing much has been leaked from this plan and, therefore, it is still to be seen what type of measures Italy shall be taking in this field and what type of agreement may emerge among the social partners.

What is worth noting is that the President of Italy spoke openly about the need to strengthen economic competitiveness in order to safeguard those jobs that there are at present and create new employment opportunities. It is equally important to note that the Italian government has made it clear that it does not want to rush things and is willing to discuss and if need be amend its plans, but it would eventually have to come to a decision.

The reactions of the social partners have been mixed. Employers have described it as a first good step forward; a trade union whose membership base is traditionally seen to belong to the centre of the Italian political spectrum has declared itself willing to negotiate such that meaningful measures are taken; while the major left-wing trade union has simply dismissed the measures that were proposed.

There are evidently some similarities between the Maltese scenario and the Italian scenario. The reaction of the Maltese employers and the Italian employers is practically the same. The behaviour of the Union Haddiema Maghqudin in the discussions on the Maltese social pact is similar to that of the CISL (the centrist trade union), while the attitude of the General Workers Union at times appears not to be too different from that of CGIL (the left wing trade union).

The General Workers Union admittedly did seek to negotiate with the government here in Malta and did not just dismiss outright the proposals put forward as CGIL did in Italy. The reason why I am bringing out these similarities arises from my conviction that our situation is not that different from that faced by other countries.

Although, as I stated, nothing much has been leaked about the details of this plan, it is known to contain nine broad proposals and the technical meetings are focusing on six of them, that are the strengthening of what is referred to as the productive base of the economy, the simplification of administrative procedures, research and development, investment in infrastructure, the welfare system and the administrative regulations.

I think this is where the similarities between Malta and Italy tend to cease. All these issues have long been the subject of debate in this country. At times they have been linked to the competitiveness of firms operating in Malta but, when it came to discussions on the social pact that was meant to be a comprehensive agreement on how to strengthen competitiveness, they did not seem to have featured much. Instead, the whole big issue was about public holidays that fall on a weekend, something which should have been a non-issue at all when the whole idea was how to make Malta work more and not how to make it work less.

The measures that the Italian government is expected to take should cost the taxpayer something like Lm450 million a year for a period of four years. One may agree or disagree with the effectiveness of these measures but there is certainly agreement that the government is making use of public resources to implement these measures.

Therefore, no one questions what the government is giving up in these discussions, because the resources that the Italian government has belong to the Italian people and not to individual people.

This is in stark contrast with the situation in Malta. At several points in the discussion on the social pact in this country, some trade unions were asking what the government is going to give up, as if the government's resources were not public but belong to some private individuals. It is as if trade unions in this country do not recognise or understand that when the government accepts to grant any concession to them, it is making use of the Maltese taxpayers' money.

It is this lack of understanding of this basic issue that I believe has been behind the failure of the negotiations on the social pact. This leads persons to wish that the government fails in its endeavours, as there is not the appreciation that when the government fails, the whole country (and more so employees rather than employers) suffers the negative consequences.

So, whereas in Italy the discussion on competitiveness includes the country's the welfare system, in Malta not only it does not but some even consider the issue as totally irrelevant today. We keep on talking about simplifying administrative procedures but there is not the understanding that this issue impacts on competitiveness like there is in Italy.

Obviously Italy will need to sort out its problems and we need to sort out ours. However, I believe that there is a leaf or two that we need to take out from Italy's book. The discussion on the social pact and the competitiveness has not been exhaustive enough in this country and, in effect, it cannot be until it is recognised that we are talking of national issues and not parochial ones.