Malta slows down Europe

Malta placed right at the bottom of the Lisbon strategy scorecard published this week by the Centre for European Reform and presented by the President of the European Commission. The European Union's ‘Lisbon’ reform programme aims to make Europe the world’s most competitive economy by 2010. Europe is far from achieving it's economic objectives and during this week's EU summit governments are expectd to clash over how to reach the Lisbon targets. The scorecard report states that "it is hard to make a definite judgement about the tiny island state of Malta - it does not supply data for many of the key Lisbon measures". No explanation in sight from the National Statistics Office. Despite the embarassing performance of the Gonzi-led Maltese economy, Europe has been making some slow progress. Jacques René Zammit, currently having a break from his duties at the European Court of Justice, blogs about Malta's dismal performance:

Malta Placed Bottom in Lisbon Process: Okay. Here we go. Almost one year in the EU and we rank with Bulgaria and Romania. Economically? No not just. It includes female employment rankings and achievements in secondary education. Dumping in Landfills is significant... others are cutting down and we are adding I repeat adding the amount of dump per person. Every Maltese citizen is worth 187kg of rubbish a year. We should put it on our ID cards instead of the photo. Every one with his personalised photo of rubbish... However do not panic. I am hoping that some Macchiavellian minded Nationalist at Darcentrali has seen all this. The chart comes conveniently at a half-way term in government. I'm ready to bet that for most of the standards the results will be very different as elections approach. Then we will be the record country that bounces from 27th to 8th in one go. Thanks to lies, damned lies and statistics.

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