Parliamentary secretary for European affairs Ian Borg was in Brussels to attend a meeting of the socialist and democratic group in the European Parliament. He is in charge of the preparations for activities that Malta will be conducting in 2017, as President of the European Union Council.

The preparations are being actively pushed forward. Among other moves, there has been a planned increase in the staff complement at Dar Malta, in Brussels. It has already stepped up its operations to cover the rise in the administrative output that the presidency will entail.

Ian detailed other aspects of the administrative and technical runs that are being implemented. The moves carried out appear to me to be timely. If they maintain their present rhythm, things should be well in place at the right time. Not least by way of using the presidency in order to project a dynamic image of the island.

Personally, I doubt whether the fact that a country is at the presidency of the Union opens up any new prospects. Still I take great pleasure when I see that such well planned arrangements are being laid out for an occasion that is considered to be of importance.

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Vilification

The proposal to revoke a law that defines the vilification of the Catholc religion as a criminal act has raised polemics.

Another law which bans all acts or statements that encourage contempt or hate towards all religious creeds, including atheism (?), will remain valid. On reflection, I cannot see any reason why the Catholic religion, or any other religion for that matter, will need further “protection”.

We are told that the repeal of the vilification law is anti-constitutional. The text of the Constitution is written in a mode that encourages the protection of Catholicism. This is not done when existing measures intended on purpose to safeguard that aim are revoked.

Such an argument follows this logic: If you proclaim the wish to protect something, all that exists as of now to “safegaurd” it, should be retained.

Does this hold even when circumstances have changed in beliefs, behaviour and way of saying things?

If so, then we should have retained the structures of the Inquisition.

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Economic history

“The Evolution of the Maltese Economy since Independence” a paper by Aaron Grech published by the Central Bank should have attracted greater attention than it did. Unfortunately, we lack a tradition of in-depth reflection about the economic situation.

Grech investigates the growth of the Maltese economy between 1964 and the present by analysing economic and financial data longitudinally across a number of sectors. It’s a very interesting approach. He thus supplies a frame for the shift towards an economy based on services despite an initial thrust towards industrialization and the ongoing strong role played by government in developments.

His conclusion is that over the years, our economy became more stable even as it maintained quite respectable real growth rates.

Although a statistical base is crucial for such a study, I doubt whether it is sufficient to identify fully the factors that defined economic developments. For this, one also needs to analyse the strategic proposals that led to certain decisions being taken.        

And perhaps too, the economic narrrative has to take the end of the Second World War as its starting point.

In drawing up such a story, Aaron Grech’s study will remain a very useful tool.