"It started badly, early in March, the last week during which the European Parliament was holding all its meetings "in the flesh". Many MEPs were absent and I returned early to Malta. With no direct flight from Brussels airport, I booked one with Ryan Air from Charleroi, an hour's drive by car. The EP's car service put me for the drive alongside an MEP from Bergamo, then the top hot spot for corona virus. Supposedly, MEPs from hotspots were not expected in Brussels. Both of us did not wear masks.
For all of the trip practically, the MEP never stopped having phone conversations. Back in Malta I decided it was prudent to self isolate for two weeks. Just as I was finishing this programme, I got phone calls informing me that the Maltese authorities were putting people of my age on "lockdown". Grrr.
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From March to early May, it was first a question of coming to grips with meetings held in "virtual" space. There were hiccups which did not prevent a lively debate from going on within the S&D group of the Parliament's economic and financial committee. It was about the recovery plan that the EU needed to set out to contain the economic fallout of the pandemic.
MEPs fron southern states and others, thought this was an opportunity to push through the idea of at last getting an issue of European bonds, under the Union's guarantee. They would fund the grants and loans for hard hit countries, mostly in the south. A number of member states were adamantly opposed to any issue of EU bonds on this basis.
Along with others, I argued that this would not wash. The recalcitrant states would refuse to back any joint issue of bonds unless perhaps it was presented as a once off affair in response to the pandemic crisis. The debate lasted for weeks.
Meanwhile, at my office we tooled up for "distance" voting at plenary and committee meetings. Making sure it was being done properly was a complex process. My two assistants in Brussels did a very good job.
Godfrey Grima and Dr Sant at the launch of Pupu in September 2008
What I consider to be a radical change in my habits happened. For long decades, every morning I visited a newsagent to buy the papers which I would then religiously read. Not any more. Instead, I downloaded the full pdf issue for the duration of the "lockdown". When it was lifted, I kept following the new arrangement.
To be sure, there were some withdrawal symptoms. I have become an assiduous follower of weekend print media, like Leħen is-Sewwa and some of the European Sundays.
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Even by "virtual" means, lobbying and positioning within the EP continued over the weeks. I too had a target and could not let go: getting into the newfangled standing subcommittee of the economic and finance committee that would be dealing with taxation issues. I wanted a place on it and got it, despite the hurly burly. Taxation issues will crucially impact Maltese financial services.
Meanwhile, my assistants and I spent much time delving into upcoming initiatives by the European Commission to spice up the capital markets union, by which company shares and bonds could get launched and traded on a pan-European basis. Much investment in the US is channelled through equity markets. EU investment mainly happens via bank lending. The EP is working on a resolution to help relaunch the capital markets union and I'm the socialists' rapporteur on the draft text, to which over 330 amendments have been filed. The final resolution should be ready for a vote by the first week of September. We shall see.
Week after week, we had meetings with a succession of representatives from the financial services industry and "consumers" organizations. There was a plethora of submissions to wade through, most quite technical. For instance, at present I'm struggling to truly assimilate the whole meaning of "simple, transparent and standardized" synthetic securitisation (STS) in contrast to "balance sheet synthetic securitisation" (BSSS). I used to think BS stood for some thing else in the past. Not any more.
Graduating in the Sciences om 1967. Dr Sant is second from left. Teaching staff: Prof Edwards, Prof. Peter Lewis and Prof. Anthony Jaccarini
Yes, the corona virus purdah did stimulate more assiduous reading. In part I concentrated on pandemic and/or castaway fiction: A Journal of the Plague Year (Defoe); Station 11 (St John Mandel); The Last Man (Mary Shelley); Robinson Crusoe (Defoe again).
Finally I got back to Thomas Wolfe which I've been wanting to do for so long - Look Homeward, Angel: I liked. Another highlight: Wittgenstein's Poker (Edmonds and Eidenow) extremely well written.
And now it's the blockbuster Congo (David van Reybrouck). All the European racists who think that Africa is sponging on Europe would be shocked to learn how Europe sponged on the Africans and did it with whip in hand.
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Living under "lockdown" meant less exercise. When in Brussels from Monday to Thursday every week, I would walk for over an hour day in day out. Here, under doctor's orders, one needed to keep that going somehow. Daily walks after sunset for an hour or so revealed the wealth and interest of Malta's street plants, not those in roundabouts, but under pavements and by boundary walls, as planted by God I guess.
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There was time too for writing up a project that had trailed over more than two years and a half - my remembrance of things past for the years 1975 to 1992, which I call my middle years. Finally I finished the first draft. It now needs months and months of editing and pruning."
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