When a year is coming to an end, people tend to look back and analyse all that has happened to them.

Some may have had beautiful experiences – a trip abroad, a new relationship, a better job – while others may have things they would not like to remember – the death of a loved one, a serious accident, poor health.

Often, it is a mixture of both. Everyone had his or her ups and downs over the course of 12 months. Sometimes, it is the trivial things that make or break a day – even a year. It could be a chance encounter with an old friend that changes your life. On the other hand, a fall and a broken foot may have spoilt your summer.

As the end of 2005 approaches and a new year is about to start, we should all take stock of what we did in the past 365 days. We should ask ourselves – are we better persons than we were last year? Did we make mistakes? What were these mistakes? Can they be corrected? What good did we do? Can we build on that good?

This exercise is important as a means not to depress ourselves because of the bad things we committed – or to overpraise ourselves for the good things that we did.

It is important for us to grow as individuals, learn from our errors, correct them, and build on the good things that we have done.

Similar exercises should be carried out by groups and organisations – and this includes political parties. Even they should sit down and see what they could have done better and on what to build their future.

For Malta, 2005 started with the failure in talks over the social pact – an issue that came to the fore again later in the year, when budget time approached. This year, the budget was overshadowed by what happened a week earlier – when the government announced a steep increase in the water and electricity surcharge, mostly because of the ever-increasing international price of oil.

This led to protests and industrial action during the last two months, spearheaded by the General Workers’ Union. These demonstrations have subsided over Christmas. But one understands that the issue is not over yet, and it is likely to pick up, once the festivities are over.

As talks at Malta Council for Economic and Social Development collapsed again over the surcharge question, doubts have started to creep in over the validity of such an institution, if negotiations are leading nowhere. We await developments.

As a country, Malta is still finding its feet as a European Union member state. The benefits of

membership are slowly filtering in and things will get better – after an agreement was finally reached in Brussels earlier this month on the EU budget for 2007-2013.

The accord broke an impasse that risked putting the European Union in a financial crisis following the political difficulties it encountered earlier in the year, when France and Holland rejected the European Constitution, which Malta ratified in a rare parliamentary consensus a few weeks later.

The biggest event of the year to be held in Malta was certainly the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting during the last weekend of November. The head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth, spent four days in Malta on an official visit during which she officially opened CHOGM.

Months of preparation culminated in a weekend of talks involving representatives of the 53 Commonwealth members – most of them heads of government. It was a big organisational headache for a tiny country like Malta, but we came out with flying colours.

The new year will start with the coming into force of updated littering regulations that have increased fines for people disposing of waste illegally. Let us hope that at the end of 2006 we will be talking about a cleaner Malta.