The government’s proposal regarding how to increase the representation of women in the Maltese Parliament deserves support. At last a concrete measure has been set forward to resolve a fundamental problem of Maltese democracy. What should be done to increase the number of women active in Maltese politics with decision making roles?

Clearly, despite the many declarations of good intentions made over the years, on this matter things have hardly changed – if indeed, they did not go into reverse.

There can hardly be any doubt that the most direct appraoch to find a remedy is via the introduction of quotas. That is what the experience of “advanced” democracies shows. For those who, poor things, are reminded of tuna when “quotas” are mentioned, we could label this method the American way, that of positive discrimination – and nothing in it stinks or is anti-democratic. A social inbalance can only be corrected by social measures.

Evidently, the government did not wish to antagonise those (men and women) who remain antagonistic to the quota method. Its solution has its own demerits though, among which the fact that it will make us one of the countries with the highest number of MPs per square mile.

Still the important point is that at last, here is a government which has come up with a concrete remedy.

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Recommendations

One of the unlovely proposals in the unlovely report approved by the European Parliament last week about the rule of law in Malta and Slovakia goes as follows: Malta should adopt (as soon as possible) all the recommendations of the Venice Commission which visited the island some months ago.

Now, to come up with such an idea, one has to be really inane, malicious...  or complacent in the belief that one is fully competent and holy to preach to others about how “democratic rules” should be respected.

I was among those who stated that the Venice Commission report offered many leads towards serious reforms in the governance of Malta. But is is quite obvious that these needed to be discussed and considered by our society which would then decide on the basis of its own particular experience.

The European Parliament’s call for us to introduce all the Commission’s recommendations with topmost speed shows why the whole resolution is hardly worth the paper on which it got printed.

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Fewer babies 

Ironies never cease in the life of any nation.

In the 1950s, there arose a polemic between the Maltese Catholic Church and a British Labour MP when the latter claimed that the Maltese people bred like rabbits.

Today according to the latest published statistics, our birth rate is possibly the lowest among European communities.

Meanwhile, the population living in Malta is growing at one of the biggest rates this century. This is happening because people are living longer, because net migration from Malta to foreign parts has been totally eradicated, and because the number of foreigners coming to live in Malta has increased at an unprecedented rate.

I have already met people who say that the Maltese are going to end up as a minority here. To be sure, from time to time, I have heard other Europeans (not Maltese) who would be saying the same thing about their fellow citizens in their own country.