The health of our tourism sector depends on a clean sea. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The heat of summer is back with us with a burst and, as is customary with me during the silly season, this contribution and the coming two will not be based on a single topic but on two or three topics.

The first starts with a question: Will it be too late?

When we promote Malta as a tourist destination, very often we make reference to the sea surrounding us. It is an important part of our tourism product because it gives tourists the opportunity to swim in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Obviously the photos used in our marketing efforts show a very clean sea with no sludge or slime or dirt. They would show a Maltese sunrise or a Maltese sunset with calm, inviting waters.

However, those of us who swim regularly know full well that our sea is not clean. This week we had once more fish slime invading our bays and creeks. Products made of plastic such as cups or bags abound. One even gets food leftovers that would have been thrown in the sea.

Some people have even resorted to throw in the sea charcoal that would have been used for a barbecue on the beach. It is more than evident that these items are finding themselves in the sea because of people who could not be bothered to keep the sea clean.

Tourists notice such dirt as much as we Maltese do and there will come a time when we can no longer promote our clean blue sea. Then it will be too late because eventually the country’s reputation would have been damaged.

Our tourism sector is a national asset because it provides a livelihood directly or indirectly to thousands of families. It is up to each and every one of us to care for this sector, before one day we find out that it is too late to do anything about it.

My second topic is Italy, which has had a new government for nearly three months now. One of the features of the new government is not so much to question past decisions but to reverse them. For example, Italian ministers speak of halting the project connecting Turin with Lyon by a fast train. This project is expected to make it easier and cheaper for Italian exporters to get their products to the heart of Europe.

If such a decision to halt this project were to be confirmed, it would send a very wrong message to investors.

It would tell investors that their investment can never be safe in that country as it could be jeopardised whenever the governing party changes.

The lesson we need to learn is that, as a country, there has always been a consensus on the critical importance of foreign investment to our economy. We have made sure that no bona fide and law-abiding foreign investor ever feels threatened or insecure. Over the past decades there have been some minor exceptions to this general rule and those politicians that generated this insecurity have been punished by the electorate.

I strongly believe that this national consensus on the importance of foreign investment to our economy should be strengthened in an unequivocal way.

And finally, Donald Trump and the EU.

This week Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte visited the White House. Donald Trump welcomed him very warmly, which is much more than can be said about the welcome he gave to Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Emmanuel Macron, the French President.

We obviously need to appreciate that Trump will continue to pursue US interests first and foremost. After all this was his electoral pledge. However the EU and its component member states are also expected to pursue European interests first and foremost.

My interpretation of Trump’s attitude towards the Italian Prime Minister, who governs with the support of two populist parties, is that he is trying to drive a wedge between the leading states in the EU. He has evidently chosen the weakest of the three EU largest economies to achieve his aim.

The EU needs to re-assert its economic prowess. Taken collectively, it is after all, the world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest trader of manufactured goods and services, and should seek to ensure that its economic interests are safeguarded, just like other countries do.