While reading Simon Busuttil’s article entitled“ All that one can or needs to say” (ToM, 10 August), I couldn’t help restraining visions of my old friend − of pre-referendum times – addressing PN councillors, taking from his pocket a euro coin and excitedly brandishing it in the air for all councillors to see! His message, if I recall correctly, was that had we not joined the EU and adopted the euro as our currency, the future of the Maltese people and Malta’s economy would have been doomed! In brief, the euro saved the people and our country!
Funnily enough, today the Maltese people have to fork out many millions of euro in cash, and hundreds of millions (were 400-450 millions, now I understand, hundreds more!) as guarantee, to save the euro!
Even eminent economists, to mention just one from quite a number, such as Professor Paul De Graewe – economic adviser to European Commission President, Jose Manoel Barroso – was quoted by the Belgian newspaper De Morgen to have predicted the collapse of the euro over a timeframe of 10 to 20 years if the EU does not become a fully integrated “ political “ super-state, besides being integrated economically!
I am sure Simon Busuttil knows that such a fully integrated super-state is out of the question, since quite a number of member states’ governments are totally against such integration. I understand that even the PN government is against such kind of total integration. Incidentally, way back on 14 May 1999, when Dr Busuttil was general secretary of The European Movement (the propaganda arm of the EU), I had reminded him of what the British Federation of Small Businesses were saying about the euro: “The idea is gaining ground in Europe that it is not a question of whether the euro will crash or not, but when.” Simon Busuttil will probably also dismiss the British Federation of Small Businesses as “euro sceptic” too!
Of course, the euro today is our currency. So we can only hope that what very serious commentators had predicted about the euro will not happen. Incidentally, nearly all the countries which are in the “ cauldron of the financial and economic turmoil” – to use the same words Simon used − happen to be in the eurozone!
Today Simon Busuttil is calling for solidarity with all those member states that are on the brink of financial disaster. What a different picture to the one presented to the Maltese people by the former Head of MIC and his colleagues in the ‘Yes to Europe’ movement, most of whom have jumped on the gravy train to Brussels! “Vote ‘Yes’ for us and our children” they used to say. How right they were!
Eddy Privitera