Bolder politics

Referring to a speech delivered last week at the European parliament by the British PrimeMinister, Godfrey Grima writes on today's Sunday Times that Blair could well have had Malta in mind:

Mr Blair may well have had Malta in mind when he urged EU parliamentarians to seek fresh-faced ways of doing politics. Our arrival in Brussels, admittedly only a year ago, shows no signs of providing us with much better hopes of beating our social and economic problems fast, and very probably for lack of wanting to appear difficult. Maltese politicians are as much entrenched in 'Old Europe' as Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder, as immobile in their political strategies as those in France and Germany.

We have been in the midst of a whacking financial mess for more than a decade and have been living with sluggish economic returns for years. Our national debt and the government's budget deficit continue to defy the law of gravity and head north. Yet rather than scythe down bureaucracy and lower tax ceilings - moves likely to whip up a fresh fighting spirit among our investing few and our working class - Government insists on lining itself up with the provisions of the EU Stability Pact and raise taxation without however creating alternative growth opportunities or providing us with distinctly improved services.

We all expected things to take a different shape, yet promises trumpeted enthusiastically during the EU referendum are hardly taken seriously today. Why? Because the EU tends to be a little bit like God, helping only those who help themselves - not necessarily only by swallowing their directives wholesale but also by putting up a fight for alternative, suitable deals. In Brussels it's the wheel that squeaks that gets the oil. Somnambulate as we all may into believing our difficulties will eventually sort themselves out on their own now that we form part of the EU, the truth is this will simply not happen.

Given the tight-fisted manner in which government confides in us on when to expect better days - and the media's preference for playing politics instead of objectively reporting the truth - voters, looking at the state of the country, are left with no option but to complain and condemn. Is this exclusively the fault of a lax, weak and inefficient nationalist government? Any answer you get is likely to provide only the short view. The fault lies with a political class that has grown insouciant, fearful of looking beyond an atrophied way of running the country. Just as bad, if not worse, many of us no longer insist on the values by which we mark politicians down before we put them into power.

Tiresome as these arguments may sound, they bear repeating for the condition they reveal. Our politicians are failing to lead us out of our predicaments fast enough and it is now getting seriously late. It won't take China, India, Morocco and many other investment and holiday resorts long to catch up with us - much less time than it takes to catch up with the other richer, bigger EU states. Malta's two main political parties possibly have a limited time frame in which to break out of the box and turn creative, innovative and bold with their politics. Efficiency starts at home. Both parties have frontline politicians who are either in it for themselves or are not worth trusting with handling national tasks. Both should take a firm axe to that.

Both should provide smaller, truly efficient cabinets. In a country the small cabinets that outnumber the backbench don't necessarily make for greater efficiency.
Elsewhere in Europe people seem to be insisting that politicians take a harder look at their country's sovereignty to stop beginning to look like a Weimar Republic kowtowing to the will of Brussels at the expense of their culture, their national identity or their economy. Politicians face that same task here - in addition to generating a brand new enthusiasm in our future. That calls for a display of skills at hammering out a pulsating vision that will carry us all with it - the type that makes everyone roll up their sleeves and commit to making miracles out of our meagre resources.

You don't have to be a dictator to do that. Ireland pulled itself out of its economic mess first by producing that same type of national plan, then by joining the EU. The political party that convinces us it can dump the old order and come up with a brand new concept on how to govern the country to our best interests as an EU member state will come in with the better chance at the next election. It will be our hero.

The full text of Tony Blair's speech

Malta: coming soon to a theatre near you - Lou Bondi states that if a country the size of Poland needs branding, Malta needs it a hundred times over.