We all remember the famous slogan before the EU membership referendum, “Nghidu IVA ghal uliedna”. Today it sounds so hollow that it seems ages ago and not just two-and-a-half years.

Say YES for the sake of our children, for better opportunities, indeed. Yet with well over a year into membership and some personal experience working in the European Parliament, I find it hard to believe that our government can be so incompetent dealing with these “opportunities”.

In fact, apart from trying its best to look good and EU-friendly (never quite understood why), the government has done close to nothing to ensure that we make the most of the situation.

Incompetence and disinterest

Take traineeship in the EU institutions. Malta was the only new member State that did not send any government trainees to the European Commission. Those who had shown an interest to apply were told all sorts of excuses to dissuade them – that it was not feasible, that it is too expensive to live in Brussels and that their salary would not make ends meet.

When the Commission finally published the trainee statistics, Malta was last on the list with zero trainees. It became public knowledge that the government did not even make an attempt to have its employees get first hand experience of the mechanisms in European institutions, particularly the Commission, which, may I remind you, is the unelected “government” of the Union.

This prompted the government to act. But those who were interested, and eventually did apply, discovered to their surprise that the operatives at the Maltese High Representation in Brussels were hardly competent to process their applications. In fact it seemed they had no idea at all and were making a mess out of it. The deadline for Malta was eventually extended, blaming an error in the Commission database, and a quick meeting was called for those who had been selected, informing them that they were to leave Malta the following day. It was only after the applicants made it quite clear that they needed much more than a 24-hour notice to prepare for a six-month stay in Brussels, that the date was again extended.

So at last, 16 months after EU membership, the Maltese government has sent its first trainees to the EU Commission.

The lack of government enthusiasm in this case could be traced to factors other than plain incompetence. The truth is that although the trainees are technically working for the European Commission, the Maltese government forks out their 2,400-euro salary. This in addition to the normal salary they receive back home. Therefore it is no wonder that these applicants had initially been put off; they were even told that the cheapest apartments in Brussels cost 1,500 euro a month. Indeed, I used to pay just 500 euro for a nice apartment in the Schuman area – in rue Archimede, to be precise, the same street where the derelict Lm9 million Malta House stands just across from the Commission building.

Getting first hand experience in EU institutions is not just a familiarisation process; it is a necessity in order to make EU membership less painful. We need to get the most from the EU as a result of those VAT returns that float from our children’s mouths into the Union coffers; for the huge sums of money needed to set up the EU one-size-fits-all executive infrastructure.

But is this a priority on the government’s agenda?

Lost opportunities

I can give a splendid example of the way this government operates in the field of gaining from “opportunities”. You might recall that animal breeders were also promised heaven on earth before the 2003 referendum. Then, after the referendum, during the interim year before membership, George Pullicino assured them that professionals were to be appointed to handle their applications for the EU funding that was allocated to them. They were promised that these “architects” would be contacting them in due course. But the membership date arrived and no one approached the breeders, who eventually were informed that they had lost the first year’s funding. Ready for the second year, you might say. But nearly two years later, up till yesterday as far as the breeders’ know, nothing whatsoever is being done. It looks more likely at this rate that the second year’s funding will be lost too.

Compare this irresponsible attitude to Dr Gonzi’s infantile enthusiasm to ratify a dead EU Constitution – a Constitution that was vetoed by the French and the Dutch people for its centralising features, and one that further plunges our nation into the depths of irrelevance.

Baffled by membership

We have taken it upon ourselves to burden our nation with 100,000 pages of EU laws and regulations, and we have a government that makes sure it is compliant because our Prime Minister has made it a priority to be a “good European”. Yet nothing seems to be done to take the much-vaunted “opportunities” the EU is said to offer. Meanwhile, we experience the consequences of membership with rising unemployment due to “restructuring” (aligning ourselves with the one-size-fits-all regime, rather) and higher taxation, with exaggerated ECO taxes that are higher than in other member States. Backing us up is a flagging economy with disheartening deficit rates and a mountain of debts. As a bonus, we also have to put up with an increased influx of immigrants since it was a condition of membership to apply the full Geneva Convention as the new EU frontier. Repatriation flights are now reportedly costing us 250,000 euro per flight, but we have as yet to see a single euro cent towards our expenses as an EU frontier.

That is what do we get for being “good Europeans”.

Today the sad reality of EU membership is a Maltese government baffled by the task of competing with other member States for the EU booty. But it’s more like a tiny shrimp in the middle of great white sharks, so the government does nothing.

It is clear now that the Nationalist Party never saw beyond membership. It was all pie in the sky. Since before the 1980s, EU membership had been its mission and now it has achieved that aim, it finds itself lost in a maze of EU governance. It is clear; the Nationalist Party has still not grasped what the EU is all about.

[email protected]