Prime Minister Joseph Muscat today said that the legacy of the Malta EU Presidency was the capacity-building which was strengthened within the country.

Muscat was addressing a meeting at a Malta-EU Steering and Action Committee (MEUSAC) this morning.

He said that, with the Malta EU presidency drawing to an end, it is time to be "drawing conclusions." "What is certain," he said, "is that it helped improve certain capacity building skills as a country which we did not have before," he said. "The legacy of this presidency is this capacity building." Capacity building refers to the strengthening of skills, abilities and resources. 

He continued that one of these capacity-building factors is that we now have "doors of institutions which are open, perhaps which before we did now know existed, or were difficult to open."

Muscat said that networking is another factor to this capacity building. "Our people in different fields, in different countries now have intrinsically personal and professional relationships with different interlocutors," he said. He said that the work for the Presidency was not done in six months but four years. "This work and capacity building cannot be lost, we cannot afford to lose it," he said. He also claimed that with Social Dialogue under the Ministry for European Affairs, he is optimistic for more 'cynergy' to be created. "Between the two I think that we will have occasions, more than before, of cynergy," he said. 

Speaking to the media afterwards, Muscat said that Air Malta employees will not be losing their jobs, and complimented former Minister for Tourism, Edward Zammit Lewis on the work he completed during the last legislature, calling him 'fantastic'.

This was the first MEUSAC meeting chaired by Parliamentary Secretary for European Funds and Social Dialogue Aaron Farrugia. He said that throughout the presidency, strides have been made in roaming tariffs, tax evasion and the fishing sector, to name a few.