Malta is experiencing sudden population growth. The impact of this was deliberated during a roundtable organised by Partit Demokratiku together with European Liberal Forum in Valletta on December 1.
I am personally against sacrificing our nation’s beauty, security or heritage for excessive economic gains. However, it is clear that the ship has sailed and it is now a matter of softening the impact in some cases. Key in this regard is to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of Malta’s economic, social and environmental development. Crucial to this is proper planning.
Malta needs sound population and urban development policies. These are currently non-existent, leading to increased social pressures allowing the far right to gain traction. Our society needs to grow in a balanced way. We need to present ourselves as a welcoming community that does not forget its past. The current lack of balance is manifesting itself clearly in three areas:
Accommodation: The immediate impact of immigration on our society is space, with accommodation of most concern for three reasons.
First, the increasing demand and limited supply of dwellings are pushing purchase and rental prices up to astronomical levels – rent in some cases has gone up threefold in five years. We now have a situation where low-income workers are not coping. This is ironic given that we have a centre-left government in power. It is even more mind boggling when you take into account how the government has not built any social housing since it was elected to power in 2013. This makes me question whether the Labour Party is still true to its values.
It is not the guest worker who is at fault but policy
Second, current and future generations are going to be compelled to live in small, shoebox-like accommodation, with diminishing recreational spaces. When it comes to the development of accommodation, greed seems to be winning over logic. This will inevitably lead to more unhealthy and stressful lifestyles for most, but particularly the less fortunate. Though there is no doubt that strict controls need to be enforced to ensure adequate living standards are maintained, one should question whether Malta has reached a point where vacant properties should be taxed.
Wages and pensions: Anecdotal evidence suggests that low-income workers, especially migrants, are being exploited by entrepreneurs. We need to examine whether reliance on imported labour is dampening wages, despite inflationary pressures. In some cases, income is not enough to make ends meet. While this is not exclusively caused by migration, it is perhaps time to consider the introduction of a living wage. We should not forget the plight of low-income families who are finding it very hard to make ends meet, and Maltese with an opportunity to emigrate in search of better salaries are still doing so.
If wages are kept low, pensions will certainly not increase either, as these are linked to one’s final salary. Only a living wage will ensure decent life during gainful employment and in retirement. In all cases, the living wage should be pegged to a rent index. Pensions should be automatically adjusted to this metric too.
Racism: It is also suggested that the sudden increase in population is leading to an increase in racist or xenophobic incidents. It appears that far-right populism is growing, the strength of the rightist argument being that multiculturism impedes integration. As a consequence, a minority of refugees, especially of African or southeast Asian origin, are becoming scapegoats, when actually, the Maltese worker’s prime competition is not the refugee worker, who opts for work that locals avoid, but the ever-increasing and welcomed legal workforce from EU and non-EU countries and what appears to be a good percentage of foreign nationals working illegally in Malta.
During the roundtable it was unclear whether the majority of Maltese are actually racist or whether they are being driven by fear of the unknown and emotions. Also unclear was whether perceived racism is actually about colour or the grouping of people of a different nationality in one concentrated area (the ghetto effect). But a clear conclusion drawn was that if a Maltese person comments on the subject, they are either placed in one box (racist) or the other (liberal), which is detrimental to the free and frank discussion on the subject that we so desperately need.
Though the roundtable agreed that immigration was having other impacts on our society, including language and perhaps even crime, certain politicians are exploiting populist politics to gain traction. But this is clearly wrong because it is not the guest worker who is at fault but policy and lack of adequate controls. The sad reality is that a small proportion of the population is actually gaining from the increased strain on our nation, and the stress on our society, with the same few oligarchs becoming richer by the day.
What is of more concern is the apparent total disregard towards the welfare of future generations. A well-designed approach to migration should also take into account the impact of present decisions on future generations.
We need to sustain a migration policy that promotes sustainable growth, addresses the challenges that come with a sudden increase in population, ensures adequate income and access to adequate housing to all and does not feed into racist or xenophobic sentiments. Planning for migration does not mean pulling the drawbridge but ensuring that everyone succeeds.
Lt Col (ret’d) Martin Cauchi Inglott served as commander of the AFM’s Maritime Squadron. He is now a UN consultant and secretary of Partiti Demokratiku.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece