We should not be surprised that last week’s Eurobarometer survey showed that just 12 per cent of Maltese would vote to leave the EU if a referendum had to be held today. This is proof, if any were needed, that the benefits of EU membership have been substantial and, happily, have been experienced by people at all levels of society.

EU membership changed our country for the better and laid the foundations for the prosperity we enjoy today. It also connected us to the rest of the world like never before.

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Our prosperity and our place in the world did not suddenly materialise overnight. They are the result of EU membership.

Since 2004, the daily lives of countless people have changed materially as a result of membership.

Today, thousands of people work in a sector that did not even exist before accession. Others work abroad because EU membership gave us a right to do so. Consumers benefit from internet-shopping, mobile-telephony and low-cost travel as a result of EU laws. Society benefits from infrastructure built with EU money. We can go on and on.

But, most importantly, membership gave us EU citizenship. We now have citizenship rights in a continent of half a billion rather than just in a country of half a million. EU citizenship is truly priceless.

The gains of accession have been so substantial that everyone now knows that those who strived for EU membership, against all odds, were proven right. And we can also add that those who vehemently opposed membership over a gruelling 10-year crusade were wrong. Epically wrong. So wrong that, 15 years on, the Labour Party’s ‘Partnership’ and ‘Switzerland-in-Mediterranean’ chimeras are as empty now as they were then.

Not a single country has a partnership with the EU on the lines they promised 15 years ago. And Brexit is a painful example of just how deceitful are those who claim that one can have the benefits of membership without being a member. No such thing as having the cake and eating it too.

In a textbook case of hypocrisy and opportunism, the anti-EU brigade, led by Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat, have now shamelessly jumped on the EU bandwagon. 

Without ever as much as admitting just how costly their senseless opposition was for our country and just how irresponsible it was for them to divide our country unnecessarily over this issue for more than a decade.

Their poor political judgement would have been consigned to history were it not for the fact that, today, they are leading our country and are again displaying an equally abysmal political judgement on other vital issues. Such as the irreparable harm that their indifference to high-level corruption is causing to our country’s reputation.

EU citizenship is truly priceless

There have also been let-downs in EU membership. For instance, although our economy has internationalised, I would have expected a bigger drive to encourage our micro-enterprises to venture beyond our shores and exploit the opportunities offered by an EU market that is 1,000 times bigger than ours.

Like you, I also expected more help from the EU on immigration and on the scandalous sale-of-citizenship scheme. But, most importantly, I expected the EU to be quicker and stronger in helping us fight the corruption, the wholesale hijacking of our institutions and the gradual erosion of democracy that we have witnessed in Malta since 2013.

After six years in office, Muscat has eroded our democratic pillars to such an extent that, were we a candidate for membership today, they would simply not let us in.

But this begs the question as to why does the EU impose entry requirements on the rule of law and the fight against corruption on countries seeking to join but then lets down its guard after they join. There’s a loophole there that urgently needs to be filled.

Thankfully, momentum is now growing to turn the EU into a truly effective force, fighting alongside civil society, against national governments that undermine democracy and the rule of law. Like governments in Poland, Hungary, Romania. And Malta.

At the end of the day, that’s also why we joined the EU: so that if our democracy is threatened by our own government, there is someone to help us restore it.

There is no doubt in my mind that EU membership has been the single most important episode for our country since independence and that it has truly changed the course of our history. But to keep our country on the right side of history, we now need to ensure that we live up to the values that got us into the EU in the first place.