I have just returned from a three-week visit to Malta where I met people from various sectors. My main intention was to find out how many of these entities are aware of the EU funding available to them and what role our government is playing. To my surprise, I discovered that even Ministries lacked the necessary know-how, or indeed the motivation, to secure such allocated funding.

To start with, these are not colonial handouts from the Queen of England. EU funding, which member States such as Poland, Italy and Greece seem to gobble up with ease, comes from the taxes that EU citizens pay and they include our contributions as a member State.

Before membership we were promised that we would be net recipients. Then, when it seemed that we would in fact be net contributors due to our GDP level compared with the new European average, we were told not to worry and were eventually assured that Malta would keep its Objective I status.

But there’s a catch as this does not automatically mean that we are net recipients. It now seems that this exercise of retaining our Objective I status was all a vain spectacle. For although we are assured that the 2004-2006 budget makes us net recipients, it would still be pie in the sky if we do not submit practical projects and apply for these funds.

Two types of funding

Briefly, there are two types of EU funding: centralised and decentralised.

Centralised funds are made available collectively to all 25 member States, including specific programmes for new member States. Applications are submitted from across the EU for every specific project within the set deadline, and the most feasible and beneficial projects are approved. My sources inform me that Malta hardly applied for five per cent of what we could have potentially applied for.

There was, for example, a centralised fund allocation of e25 million for the repatriation of irregular immigrants. Did our government apply for a single euro cent in this regard? Was our government even aware these funds were available?

We then come to decentralised funds, which are those funds allocated to member States individually. These funds, which also include cohesion funds, are calculated in our specific budget. This allocated amount is immediately added to the balance that establishes whether we are net recipients or net contributors, irrespective of the actual amount applied for and received.

Like centralised funds, the government or private enterprises can submit applications. But it is calculated that Malta utilised less than 20 per cent of the allocated funds, and at the end of 2005 we are late for most of the rest.

So will the funds that are not utilised be carried forward to the next budgetary allocations? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. On the contrary, the proportion of unutilised funds will reflect negatively when it comes to the 2007-2013 EU budget since the funding we manage to process would eventually act as a passive yardstick.

It is of utmost importance that we utilise the full amount allocated to us and that we monitor the closing dates for applications, but our government has yet to wake up.

The plight of the breeders

Two weeks ago I mentioned the funds lost by animal breeders. Shortly after the publication of the article, they were given applications for subsidies on the purchase of farm equipment amounting to 50 per cent of a maximum of Lm100,000 for each applicant. But the application date closes at the end of October. The sad joke is that in order to apply one needs to submit detailed documents relating to plans and studies, which even include how the project can benefit Maltese agriculture. To do this one needs to engage professionals and this takes time.

To add insult to injury, the “autonomous republic of MEPA” failed to issue the necessary permits since the animal breeders are still not in line as far as building permits are concerned. Before the referendum, Ninu Zammit had personally assured them that the necessary permits would be issued. Later, his colleague George Pullicino also promised the breeders help in providing them with architects to submit another application related to a three-year funding project for new member States to get in line with EU regulations. This includes 25,000 euros per breeder for waste management. No architects ever came and the funding for the first year has definitely been lost. They cannot apply for this funding without the MEPA permits. Of around 150 breeders in Malta and Gozo, more than 90 per cent lost funding due to government intransigence. Just calculate how much funding has been lost in this regard alone.

But the government not only does nothing to help the breeders, it impedes them from moving forward. I am reliably informed that the government is holding over 20 per cent of the milk quota allocated to Malta. If this is the case, can anyone from the Ministry explain why this 20 per cent is being withheld? Any surplus milk the breeders produce above the given quota, which is therefore illegal, is generally processed into milk products such as gbejniet. Would it not be better if these “illegal” products are exported to the EU mainland?

What is going to happen next?

So will Malta be a net recipient or a net contributor vis-à-vis the 2004-2006 EU budget?

I am still waiting for some figures, although these are hard to acquire, and hopefully I will be able to give a clearer picture in my next article. Yet, when considering how much the EU is costing us one has also to consider that membership costs us more than what the net balance shows. Expenses are incurred wherever you focus. Complying with EU regulations, mostly spurious one-size-fits-all irritations, is a heavy financial burden for our small enterprises. Meanwhile, the government spends further tax money to enforce those regulations.

In time we will come to realise that when we joined the European economic federation, we were also joining a political federation. The more the Union integrates, the more irrelevant our country becomes. We must understand this state of affairs and rise to the occasion as the more experienced member States do in their own circumstances.

Financially, we need to get our act together and streamline our efforts not to tax Maltese citizens and enforce EU regulations, but to get those funds back and make sure we receive a greater proportion in the next EU budget. We must get our priorities right, yet as long as Lawrence Gonzi remains prime minister it is clear that his perception of Malta-EU relations is to be a good European and comply as best we can, hoping we will be rewarded eventually.

That is definitely not how the EU works.

Sharon Ellul Bonici is a Malta Labour Party candidate currently engaged in the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.

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