This week, Malta celebrated the 20^th anniversary of when the country officially acceded into the European Union.

Many will recall that day back in 2004 and the visual spectacle as the European flag was projected onto Fort St Angelo and fireworks lit up the sky that accompanied Malta’s entry into the bloc – a day which is, from a historical perspective, the most important and impactful day for the country in the 21^st century.

A lot can be said about the impact that Malta’s entry into the European Union has had on the country and its people, and as with any such major decision the debate on what was positive and what was negative will always be there.

The positives however are for all to see: Malta is now connected to the wider European continent, despite being a lonely island in the Mediterranean Sea.  This applies both economically, particularly today as the world grows closer and closer together in the digital age, but also from a more social perspective.

The Maltese people now, through Malta being part of the Schengen agreement, has the opportunity to study and work abroad, and hone their expertise and make bigger impacts on the continent than ever before.  The knowledge they gain can then filter back into the country.

Certainly one must only look around oneself to see the impact that European funding has had on the country.  The country’s infrastructure in every sense of the word (so, not just roads where it can be debated whether such funding was used as effectively as it could have been used in a long-term sense) has improved when compared to 20 years ago.

Even the smallest of organisations and groups of people have the opportunity to make projects into a reality using European funding, a reality which simply wasn’t possible prior to Malta being a part of the bloc.

This is not to mention the standards that the European Union has set for Malta to reach: be them regulatory or even in terms of the everyday products that people buy and consume on a daily basis.

There have been disappointments of course.  Chief amongst them surely is in how the European Union has responded to Malta’s challenges in facing illegal immigration – a matter which the bloc largely left Malta, together with other Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy, to fend for itself. 

The agreement on a new Migration Pact may bring hope, but the last 20 years have shown that when it comes to this topic, there’s a lot more than hope which is needed for there to be concrete action taken.

Such is the vastness of this topic that it cannot be condensed into 500 or so words.  Indeed whole books will no doubt be written in the future, perhaps to be symbolically published on anniversaries yet to come, on Malta and the European Union.

Till then, though, multiple surveys continue to show that the Maltese people remain decidedly pro-Europe, and in the trying times that the bloc has faced in the past years, that in itself is the most significant thing when speaking about Malta and the EU.