In my reply to the budget 2006 and 2007 speeches on the vote for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, I laid great emphasis on the need to maximise the use of our diplomatic missions abroad to boost economic diplomacy, rather than relying on merely conventional diplomatic efforts.

After all, every other

foreign ministry plays this ball game, so why should we be an exception to the rule?

I have long been aware that the ministry in Malta does have an economic

section, but from what I understand, it is understaffed, underfunded and not well geared to meet the economic challenges that lie ahead.

While supporting the efforts of the Minister to respond to our wake-up call by organising a business breakfast on the subject for both the local commercial and the diplomatic community, I feel that he should have first put his own house in order by beefing up his economic unit within the same ministry.

I agree with the Minister that diplomats also have an economic role to play, but in order to fulfil their duties to the hilt they need to be well motivated and working in an environment where they feel both welcome and part of a team.

From the internal feedback I have, this does not seem to be the case in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, except for the Minister’s inner circle – to the extent that I have received reports that trusted members of the Minister’s secretariat were recently entrusted to sound out other members of the Ministry to ascertain how they felt about the day-to-day running of the Ministry.

It would be opportune had the people concerned given the Minister an honest and true picture of the feedback they obtained, because from the information I have, it was far from rosy.

The Minister’s pet baby, The Central Mediterranean Forum, seems to have turned into a bit of a chimera. One moment he formally launches it, the next he says in Parliament that this was just an idea that he was lobbying about strongly in commercial

circles abroad, and now we have it that it is meant to be a formal structure that should bring together the key economic operators of Libya, Tunisia, Malta and Italy.

In my opinion, the Minister should first try and win the support of the respective governments involved and then move on to the commercial and corporate sectors.

We also support the Minister’s efforts to engage the emerging economies. I was officially told in Parliament recently that our new mission in India would be opened before the end of the year.

Since we are already in the month of December, can the Minister be kind enough to tell us what the official opening date of the Indian mission happens to be?

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No euro U-turn

The Nationalist press recently claimed that during a national conference on the euro, the Leader of the Opposition performed another U-turn because after first going on record saying that the MLP will respect the dates and modalities that the Maltese government and the EU have agreed regarding the would-be introduction of the euro, Dr. Sant was now having second thoughts about his position.

When I diligently went over Dr Sant’s speech, I realised that there was no U-turn at all involved.

All he had said was that, although we still think that it would have been more opportune had the euro been introduced at a time when we were experiencing a higher rate of growth, the MLP in government would respect the time-schedules set by the Maltese government and the EU.

So where’s the beef?

Why all the fuss by the Nationalist press?

The problem is that, whether they are admitting it or not, they are in an election mode so they cannot afford to lose any chance of trying to lambast Labour or its party leader.

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Was John Dalli framed?

When I was shadowing Finance and Economic Affairs I crossed swords with Minister John Dalli on various occasions, both in Parliament and outside the House of Representatives, but on a personal level I cannot but feel that the man might have been framed when he was urged to resign from his position of Foreign Affairs Minister.

If the PM did indeed base his actions on the findings of a certain private investigator before urging Mr Dalli to take such a decision, now that it has transpired that the investigator’s findings were false and fabricated, could this imply that the former Minister was framed?

Rather than wasting his time and energy on trying to probe splits within the Labour ranks, PM Gonzi should come clean on what really led him to ask John Dalli to consider resigning two years back.

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