2011 has been a year of deep-rooted change for Malta, with international events engulfing the country and with matters on the domestic front not all that rosy either.
With 2011 now done and dusted, we can look back on this year now past as a year of multiple challenges and of change.
Geopolitical unrest to the south and economic turbulence to the north fenced Malta in on both flanks. A crumbling euro currency threatened and still threatens to scuttle the European Union and its currency, while North Africa’s Arab Spring, particularly events in Libya, took place on Malta’s very doorstep.
But, despite the very serious threats both sets of woes posed to our very way of life, the country fared relatively well. With Libya, Malta stood on the right side of history by having taken a risky but correct decision to declare itself against the Gaddafi regime, to hold on to those two Libyan jet fighters that would have otherwise been used to kill civilians and to assist, as it did so well, in the evacuations of foreign nationals from the war torn country. Through its actions during the Libyan conflict, Malta won the respect and gratitude of much of the world.
The country has also weathered the economic storm that descended upon us from the north, at a time when economies around us were crumbling – including our neighbour Italy. But Malta, despite being such a small, open economy and as vulnerable as that economy is to external shocks, has fared remarkably well all things considered, but we are by no means even close to being out of the woods yet.
On the strictly local front, this year’s divorce campaign, referendum and eventual legislation was a true milestone for civil rights in Malta. This publishing house had publicly backed the introduction of divorce, and we are more than satisfied that the majority of the people have seen it fit to give the right to those who have been denied it for so long.
A stumbling public transport reform that held, and still holds, so much promise dominated the latter half of summer, and it well near cost a minister his job. The government soon found itself in dire straits when the Opposition sought a no confidence vote in the transport minister and to condemn it for its handling of the affair. One dissenting MP threatened to abstain, which he did, and the Speaker of the House was forced to cast a deciding vote, which he did in the government’s favour. In reaction, the Prime Minister that same night tabled a government confidence motion, which passed.
National airline Air Malta has been flying on a wing and a prayer for most of the year, virtually bankrupt as it is, but it has recently seen glimmer of hope after reaching an agreement with the trade unions it has been dealing with over the required redundancy of about half the company’s bloated workforce. Next will be the European Commission’s verdict on the rescue plan and if that verdict is in the negative, the airline’s fate will be all but sealed.
The Opposition’s pledge to slash the country’s controversial electricity tariffs, but a seeming reluctance to say exactly how that would be done, has also dominated much of the news in the last quarter of the year. The government pressed on with its highly controversial Delimara power station extension project, which will be run on heavy fuel oil, while surrounding local councils are continuing their opposition for fear of increased pollution in their localities. Sargas with its carbon capture technology appeared on the scene, while the government is steering its energy policy towards a combination of the Delimara plant, the closing of Marsa, the electricity interconnector to the European grid and a still to be cemented gas pipeline project that would see Delimara eventually being run on natural gas.
The public outrage on the honoraria issue is still smarting with the government, and it must rankle every time the Opposition mentions ministers and parliamentary secretaries’ €500 a week rise compared with regular employees’ far more paltry cost of living adjustment. As we have said in the past, the honoraria as such is not the point, for every minister deserves the same salary conditions as other MPs, but the problem was in the shady was in which it was enacted.
All things considered, so many things could have gone so badly pear shaped this year that what we really should be doing this New Year’s Day is counting our blessings, while simultaneously bracing ourselves for the year to come.
After all, and after a year like 2011, who knows what lies in store?