I had last been at Marsaxlokk in the afternoon for the St Gregory festa quite a long while ago. This year the weather was not so nice but the crowd that gathered was happy and in the mood to enjoy life without raising too many complaints. Restaurants were doing well and the same applied for the hawkers at their stalls. This time here, by contrast with my last visit, Maltese people hugely outnumbered tourists.

I met again many old friends, some of whom I had last seen months ago, if not years. Our meetings sparked memories of dinners that were held in the surrounding restaurants, which meanwhile had changed names, owners and decor, but still specialised in fish and still were good quality.

The pity was that I had to leave early in order to drive across Malta towards Ċirkewwa, since I needed to attend a political activity in Sannat. The last time I found myself in a place that could be so relaxing despite the crowds that had gathered, was far from being recent.

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A European army

At the Żejtun Labour centre last week, I expected that a discussion could ensue about hunting and trapping (it did) or about immigration. However I was surprised to find that the greatest interest shown by those present related to Malta’s neutrality and Europe’s emerging defence policy.

Increasingly the latter is being touted in the framework of efforts to develop further Europe’s “common” policies. We seem to have been up to now minimally interested in this. But it  also seems that there exist some exceptions to such a rule.

The argument that was raised related to how Malta should position itself while this “defence” policy is being constructed. Is it an approach that contradicts Malta’s neutrality as established in the constitution?

Then, another point: if we remain outside Europe’s future defence policy, would we end up helpless in the face of war risks? Or would we end up paying through our contributions to the EU budget for a defence policy that would be of no benefit to us?

Above all: does neutrality have a value and meaning?

All these questions were brought up in the less than the twenty minutes I spent at the Żejtun Labour centre! 

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Pete Buttigieg 

I was really glad to read about Pete Buttigieg in highly rated European newspapers and news services like The Economist, Die Welt and BBC News. They all gave top prominence to their coverages about him. One was on Die Welt’s frontpage along with a photo. His name featured clearly on The Economist’s front cover. Both complained it was practically impossible to pronounce his surname but still, they considered that his political message was extremely powerful, even if it had been launched quite recently.

As a teenager, Buttigieg visited Malta on holiday with his father and I remember him in the clique of my daughter’s friends. Once or twice, I took three or four of them out to supper in a Valletta restaurant then called Caccopazzo.

I always considered him as a very intelligent and sociable youth, whose conversation made sense. European newspapers have been full of praise for the effort he has been conducting to make a good impact on the ongoing race to become US President. I wish him all success.