Last Monday, at the beginning of Parliament’s evening sitting, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi read out a prepared statement on the dramatic (and it would seem conflict-laden) summit he had just come back from on Sunday.

The Prime Minister is making it a point of delivering similar statements to the House after each summit he attends.

This time, he was, so to speak, between summits, seeing he took part in the next summit just two days later, on Wednesday. So we may expect another statement tomorrow.

I listened to the statement on Monday and was impressed, not by what was said, but rather by what was not said.

I then listened to the questions Joseph Muscat asked and was even more amazed at the shallowness and the media-orientated approach.

Maybe it was because of this, or maybe because the Prime Minister himself is rather out of his depth on the issues raging around the EU table, I heard out Dr Gonzi replying to the eight points that were made.

In the following days I then had ample time to wonder at the even shallower appreciation of what was said by the few papers that reported the exchange. If the public at large gets insufficient (and maybe incorrect) reports of what is said in the highest House in the country, no wonder we spend hours debating Arriva or the e-mail exchanges between Dr Muscat and a female journalist.

Dr Gonzi first. I hinted elsewhere that Dr Gonzi was barking up the wrong tree and missing the wood for the trees in his initial statement. The issue the EU is facing is not really an issue of lack of growth or of low competitiveness. It is those too, but as a result of the dysfunctionality deriving from the Greek problem and its ramifications among the European banks plus the onslaught on these by the markets.

Dr Gonzi keeps insisting on growth and later on praised a presentation by Barroso on SMEs, possibly because it reminded him of what his government did last year as a result of which it helped many SMEs and warded off contagion and job shedding. That is true, but the issue that is wrecking Europe is not that: it is not a question of growth but rather a question of providing the European institutions with enough firepower to withstand market pressure and inroads.

Dr Gonzi repeats statements on the seriousness of the events and that the financial stability of the EU is at stake and the possibility of a double-dip recession but seems unable to appreciate that hard decisions are called for.

Dr Muscat was even more surprising. In his questions he was back in the Super One newsroom asking good sound-byte questions about red lines, whether we will have another referendum, about fiscal federalism. The only question that made sense, in my point of view, was when he asked if another stopgap solution was to emerge rather than a deep solution that tackles the root problem.

He was so unprepared to ask questions that he never even mentioned the problems with banks when this is now the second level of the crisis − after the sovereign crisis there is the banking crisis.

He then reached the nadir of his questions when he asked about Sarkozy’s and Merkel’s grimaces when Berlusconi’s name was mentioned, as if he gets his informed reading from The Daily Mail and The Sun.

Dr Gonzi must have been either tired or in an (unusual) conciliatory mood because he refrained from tearing into his opponent for asking such questions.

Even so, he rather waffled on about ‘limited’ treaty changes that would not require any referendum. He spoke about reinforcing the Stability and Growth Pact and enforcing it.

He then, unwisely, joined Dr Muscat in expressing opposition to fiscal federalism, whatever is understood by this term.

Let me explain: it is clear that there are fundamental flaws in the composition of the euro. If the euro is to survive, it must be backed by some sort of fiscal governance. You cannot have, as Roderick Chalmers put it on Friday, one single currency based on 17 different (and divergent) fiscal policies. The two leaders seem to think, with some unevenness between them, that the EU’s unanimity rule gives Malta a big card to play any time the EU imposes fiscal federalism under whatever name. Possibly just as the CSCE format gave Mintoff a veto over whatever was being discussed by all Europe’s States.

Forget it. This is what is going to happen. Both sides must understand this. There can be no salvation for Europe with just tinkering about the Stability and Growth Pact and the Lisbon agenda. This crisis is pushing the eurogroup towards a more federal approach.

There will be one tax across the eurozone. One VAT rate (this was revealed in Malta at a private conference some days ago by a Commission official). Malta, along with Britain (which is outside the eurozone) will have to impose VAT on hitherto-exempted items such as food. There will be a far higher surveillance of member states’ deficit and debt figures than there is today. Single governments will lose their knack of playing around with budgets at pre-election times to pump up fake booms.

So it is not just a question of the eurozone arming itself with the right weapons to counter market pressures but also putting the euro beyond such attacks and dangers. It’s either that or else it’s goodbye Europe and goodbye the euro.

Now one might say, as Berlusconi (of all people) foolishly said on Friday, that the euro was a bad venture, that Europe should never have attempted a single currency. But that’s simply not true.

If this is a union of countries, if this is a single market, it cannot remain a loose collection of countries as, for instance, the Commonwealth is. It is very true that the current crisis is creating a deep split between the members inside the eurozone and those outside (especially Britain). Unravelling that will have to come later on.

But for those inside the eurozone (unless they want to exit, and not even the Greeks want that), and for those who will still want to enter the eurozone, strengthening the euro is paramount even at the cost of a couple of Halloween figures for people like Joseph Muscat, such as fiscal federalism.

Malta expects a far serious approach from its leaders, today’s and tomorrow’s.

[email protected]