The Irish vote on the Nice treaty and the affirmations of EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenther Verheugen continued throughout this week to fuel the debate on Malta's membership of the European Union. These have come on top of the announcement on the part of the EU that Malta is one of the 10 countries that have been declared as eligible for membership by the beginning of 2004.

The Irish 'yes' vote has meant that we can no longer claim that we cannot decide whether to join the EU or not because member states themselves have not yet decided whether they are in favour of enlargement or not.

We no longer have available to us the typical Maltese excuse that we can do nothing unless someone does something else. We have now been placed on the spot and we have to take a decision. This was already apparent with the EU announcement that we can become members of the EU in January 2004.

So off went a second typical excuse of those that are afraid to take decisions - that we cannot decide because we do not know whether we are wanted.

We are wanted and we know it. It was further accentuated by Mr Verheugen who stated that at the end of the day it is our decision whether to join the EU or not and no one else's.

So to put it all in a nutshell we know we are wanted; we know that we do not have to wait for something to happen to take a decision; and we know that it is up to us to decide. So there is no further running away from the decision.

There are, in effect, four options in front of us. One is not to join and hope that the status quo can be maintained forever. This issue was the subject of last week's contribution and it is very evident that maintaining the status quo is no option. So we have to discard it.

Another option is to suspend the decision whether to join or not to win more time and possibly join the EU at a later date in the not so distant future. One is right to wonder how realistic this option really is and this is proven by the fact that this thesis has not really gathered much support among the Maltese.

Moreover, if we have to join we had better join now as winning more time would only mean that we end up being the losers. The concessions that we have won during the negotiations may no longer be available to us in the future, with a European Union of 24 member states.

The parameters of future negotiations shall not be the same as they are today, and they shall not be any more favourable for Malta. Mr Verheugen stated that Malta is either in or out but cannot remain in a state of transition in its relationship with the European Union. So goes the second option.

Options three and four are probably the most easy to understand. Option three is not to join the EU and opt for an arrangement with the EU that covers a number of areas but excludes others. The Malta Labour Party is calling this arrangement a "partnership".

Option four is to take the decision that some have described as bold, others as logical, to join. This is the decision that was proposed to the electorate by the political party that has won four of the last five elections.

Although option three may be easy to understand, it is not so easy to understand what it really means. If it is true that it takes two to tango, one has to see what the EU would say to a partnership arrangement and, once it gets down to the negotiations bit, whether the EU would accept our proposals.

Mr Verheugen did make it quite clear that a free trade agreement of the type that the last Labour administration wanted to reach with the EU could not be based on some à la carte solution. It is either a free trade agreement that covers all aspects, including competition rules, or nothing. Thus it would be more than fair to question whether option three is realistic as the costs of it would be too great for our economy to bear.

This leaves us only with option four - membership. From an economic point of view this country is already highly-integrated with the European economy as evidenced by the countries of provenance of the tourists that visit Malta and the countries of destination of our exports.

There are strong political and social reasons that militate in favour of membership but I believe that the major argument is economic. All other three options lead to a great deal of uncertainty, something that the business sector hates. It is only the membership option that provides certainty and this is why the EU question has become a "now or never" issue.