Speaking at the FEANI annual business meeting held this week at the Radisson SAS Bay Point Resort, Dr Gonzi said: “Representing over two million engineers across Europe, FEANI has a very important role to play in promoting the engineering profession and representing it at every level within society.”

He said engineers created the platform that sustains the economy and invented the technologies of the 20th century such as electricity and electronics; ground, air, and space transport; radio, telephone and television; mobile and satellite communications; medical technologies; laser and fibre optics, microprocessors and the Internet; petrochemicals and nuclear technologies.

“And, all this (was) accomplished within a mere 100 years,” he said.

Technology was changing faster than ever before, said Dr Gonzi, with engineers today representing a vital element in our wealth-generating initiatives.

He said government had recognised engineering’s major contribution to society by granting formal recognition to the engineering profession with the passing into law of the Engineering Act in 1988.

Dr Gonzi said government continued to invest in the education and promotion of engineering and technology through the University of Malta that in the past decade has generated almost 700 highly-qualified engineers. He also mentioned the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology, with numerous vocational and professional education courses on offer and the Malta Council for Science and Technology.

“Maltese engineers are playing an ever-important part in many public and private organisations, leading by example and working within sometimes very challenging and competitive environments.

“It is important for all engineers to realise that we are entering a new era in the history of the engineering profession where engineers can be poised to take their rightful place at the forefront of our new economies to continue to improve lives and contribute in a very positive way to our culture,” he said.

Dr Gonzi said it was clear that the corporate world, new global conditions and the world market require a new type of engineer. “The engineers of the future will need communications skills, the ability to work in teams, the capacity to think in terms of complex systems, and also to relate effectively to other cultures, and to converse in multiple languages.”

He said emphasis needed placing on the social sciences, humanities, communication skills, ethics, professionalism, social awareness, leadership and entrepreneurship – all of which were the new fundamentals of engineering.

Speaking about the European aspect, Dr Gonzi said it was clear that all European futures depended on the ability of the professional engineering workforce to develop products and processes that enable us to inhabit a sustainable world with a sustainable lifestyle.

“Sustainable development is a new way to think about economic prosperity of your organisation and your society, with specific focus on environmental stewardship and social responsibility,” he concluded.

The meetings consisted of a conference on trafficking in human beings and a parliamentary forum on the Mediterranean as well as a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Assembly.

More than 230 parliamentarians and senior parliamentary staff from over 40 OSCE participating states took part in the two-day conference on trafficking in human beings, which included a series of presentations and discussions focusing on human trafficking as a security challenge and a new form of slavery, and international strategies in the fight against trafficking.

As leader of the Maltese parliamentary delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Dr Azzopardi participated in the meeting of the assembly’s standing committee of heads of parliamentary delegations. The meeting discussed the general activities of the assembly and followed up on the assembly’s Edinburgh declaration on Cooperation and Partnership: Coping with New Security Threats. The standing committee also discussed the theme for the annual session in Washington next year.

The second Parliamentary Forum on the Mediterranean consisted of a series of presentations and discussions focusing on fighting terrorism and fundamentalism in the Mediterranean and economic security, trade and cooperation in the Mediterranean. Malta will be hosting the fourth Parliamentary Forum in 2006.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, created by the CSCE Summit in Paris in 1990, is the parliamentary dimension of the 55-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The primary task of the 317 member assembly is to facilitate inter-parliamentary dialogue, an important aspect of the overall effort to meet the challenges of democracy throughout the OSCE area.