Tens of thousands of workers flocked in protest to Europe and the world’s cities, turning the celebration of Workers’ Day into a worldwide protest against austerity.

Here, things were different. As summer, wine and pizzas out on a Sunday al fresco become the norm for the next three months, Malta entered its summer oblivious to the real wracking problems that our European citizens are facing on the Continent.

Yesterday, both political leaders spoke of the crisis and the hard work each would put in to ensure fair distribution of wealth and opportunities for all, as election fever slowly starts to gather pace.

Has our standard of living gone down? Yes. Is it likely to get better, whoever next gets into power? No. So what is the difference that sets Malta apart from the rest of Europe? One factor is that we can’t be bothered to protest, we would much rather have a beer in the sun. But the other has to be that while spending power has been eroded, it has not had the massive impact that it has in Europe.

Yes, people have felt the pinch in Malta, but are they self-immolating to set themselves free of debts and inescapable poverty? No, they are not; and that speaks volumes. Spain is teetering on the edge and has unemployment which is edging close to 24%. This really should put things into perspective. As we wrote in our leading article in yesterday’s edition, this is no longer about recapturing economic growth. Growth is linked to debt – literally. You have to borrow to spend and that pushes up deficit levels and in turn – debt. It’s a vicious circle. French presidential candidate Francois Hollande is advocating a move away from austerity and to adopt a ‘spend out of recession’ approach. We saw that this did not work at all when Gordon Brown tried to implement it in the UK.

In that same leading article, we mentioned that food stocks are dwindling and climate change (whatever the cause) is pushing up prices of fodder and vegetable produce. Grains and cereals even have an effect on the global price of oil – so it is plain to see that it is all linked. Food and energy are our biggest challenges in the near future – and this is compounded by climate change, water shortage, drought and spiralling infrastructure costs.

The only way the world is going to change is if there is a radical change in mentality. Perhaps we should not be getting back to growth. Perhaps we should be content with what we have, pacing ourselves rather than push, push, pushing for better economic figures. Growth requires consumption and at this rate, that will lead to depletion. As we know, in our world, price is established according to demand and supply. If supply goes down, demand increases and the prices which we will pay for everyday goods we now take for granted will skyrocket through the roof.

Sustainability is a long way away. When the economy was booming, we started to think about sustainability and slowing down. Now that the economy has imploded, we are talking about trying to get growth back to the levels that landed us in this sorry mess in the first place. It really is one vicious, self-inflicted circle. The world has changed, it’s about time people accepted it, maybe that way we can figure out the way forward.