We are at the point in the election process when the respective campaigns have reached their maximum cruising velocity. It is difficult to accelerate to a spectacularly higher speed – always unless some hidden factor intrudes in the final days to radically alter voters’ perspectives.

If my memory serves me well, the last time this happened was in Spain, during the final campaign that Aznar ran for the People’s Party there. He came out blaming Basque separatists for a bloody terrorist attack that had been carried out, when it soon emerged that the Basques had nothing to do with it.

I doubt whether today, people in Malta are seeing so many disparities between what the two parties are proposing regarding future policies. But they have grasped quite well what the two contrasting themes that are being laid out stand for: the successful economic and social policies which the Labour government has followed, against the claims about governance raised by the Opposition.

As I write this, I see little scope in the remaining days for a greater momentum on one or other of these two thrusts. I might be wrong.  

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Verdict

A view expressed by the European Central Bank is that during the year 2016, efforts to promote a closer union in the management and institutional strengthening of the euro zone have stalled. This happened even though a number of euro countries came closer to the rules set by the euro zone to define their economic and financial operations.

The Bank has reached a correct verdict.

The front which the euro zone had been pushing latterly to strengthen its operating structures was that of a banking union. True, surveillance measures were introduced over a large spread of European banks, to ensure that they follow certain rules which underpin financial security over their outturn. However, significant weaknesses still endure in the coverage of big banks which could be subject to the risk of collapse. Italian banks are head of the list on this issue.

Most importantly, practically nothing has been done on the project which was highlighted as the third pillar of European banking reforms: the launching of a European scheme to guarantee all deposits placed with banks.

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Trump & Nixon

It would be premature to compare what is now happening in Washington with what took place when Richard Nixon was President and Watergate was in full blast. The crisis Nixon faced was unprecedented and terribly dangerous in the way by which it subverted the deep institutional roots of democracy in the US.

By contrast, the allegations that Trump is facing, though serious – with some of them triggered by his own electronic tweets – frequently verge on the farcical.

There can be no comparison between Trump and Nixon. The latter was a high calibre politician, who let his sense of inferiority and insecurity in and with his life, totally overcome him. Yet, he had achieved huge political victories. On the other hand, Trump is a showman who was successful in business and concluded that the same methods he used over the years, would serve him well in politics.

Nixon crashed. It is still too early to predict whether Trump will meet, or will deserve to meet, with the same fate.