On Sunday, Malta will have been a fully-fledged European Union member for one year. There are still huge divisions within our island as to whether we should have become members or not. Yet, the reality is that we are members and have been for one year.

Not enough time has passed to truly pass judgment on whether the good of membership outweighs the bad, or vice versa. Yet there have, of course, been some positives and negatives to be taken. What has certainly been learnt is that being members of the EU was not a solution to all our problems and was certainly not doomsday either, in fact everyday life as EU citizens has not changed much at all.

One of the major positives that can be taken is that Malta seems to have woken up to realities that we chose to ignore for years. The first two issues that pop to mind are the environment and the need to address the state of our public finances.

The EU acts as a watchdog and gives reminders or a prod even when countries lag behind and the two above-mentioned issues are areas that Malta has been reminded about.

Our finances needed to be looked into and they finally were, the debate of how much sacrifice that has involved is another issue entirely. The truth is that we were stuck in a financial quagmire and are now finally trying to drag ourselves out of it.

The environment is another issue that is being tackled. Of course, as always in this country, one cannot do right for doing wrong. But while other parties and NGOs might have their own ideas about the environment, an improvement certainly has been noticed, not only in the ‘capital’ projects, such as the closure of landfills, but the sense of environmentally friendly conscience that has finally seeped into our psyche as a nation.

We have also began to reap small benefits in the area of funding, although the true funding that Malta has been clamouring for years has not yet arrived and will do once the next EU funding budget period kicks off.

However, we have seen many farmers benefit from monies that have arrived from the union to supplement their own investment and this is where the truth sets in – no one gets something for nothing in the EU, you must do your share.

But there is another aspect to the EU, and that is the moral satisfaction. Unfortunately our geographic position alienates us, whether we like it or not that is the bottom line. Maltese people can now say that they are European, not just from a little island slap bang in the middle of the Mediterranean. Travelers abroad will see the most evidence of this. Gone are the long queues in immigration and gone is that suspicious look at the passport booths. Actually, one does not even need a passport to travel within the EU, although it is of course always advisable to have it with you. Malta was also allocated disaster funding to compensate for the damage caused in the 2003 floods, something that we would not have received if we were not members.

We have not yet experienced our honeymoon period in the EU either, but it will come soon enough. We are to get massive funding to build more roads to complement what has come through the Italian Protocol. But we must keep working hard. The EU believes in the principle of helping those who help themselves. This is the time for us to catch up to the rest of Europe and indeed the world.

Perhaps, the biggest blessing from the EU was the change in mentality. We can no longer brush things under the carpet in an island mentality manner. We are facing up to challenges. And people, from politicians to bus drivers to entrepreneurs have to be accountable - a very slow, but welcome change.

The reality of membership will be revealed in the future, we have not yet had a diplomatic incident, but we will wait to see how much the EU is willing to flex its muscles for our sake. One must wait to see the EU’s response to Libya’s declaration of a fisheries protection zone. We also have yet to join the Eurozone, but hopefully by then, our finances will be in better order and the economic wheels might be turning at a faster rate. We all wait with bated breath.