Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is participating in the European Council meeting taking place in Brussels between yesterday and today. This will be the third European Council meeting for the Prime Minister since the 9 March elections. His first participation at the EU's highest institution was on 14 – 15  March, during his first week as Prime Minister, and the second was on 22 May. 

The June European Council meeting will wrap up the work of the Irish Presidency and will build on previous meetings.  The March meeting concentrated on the economic and social situation in the EU, and laid the ground for sounder economic policies by the member states. Particular priority was given to supporting youth employment, completing the internal market and deepening economic and monetary union. The May Council meeting once more dealt with issues closely related to economic growth, namely taxation and energy.

Both of the two meetings already attended by Prime Minister Muscat dealt with issues high on the new Government's agenda, and he and his accompanying ministers no doubt benefited enormously from the formal and informal exchanges of views they had with their colleagues on these issues.

The June European Council meeting similarly will be dealing with issues closely related to the Prime Minister's electoral programme and commitments, and will take decisions likely to have a considerable impact on the government's economic and social targets.

The press release issued by the Council Secretariat states that economic policy will be the focus of the June European Council, which will deal with three main issues: the conclusion of the European Semester, youth employment, and industrial competitiveness.

Under the first item, the conclusion of the 2013 European Semester on the coordination of the member states' economic and fiscal policy, the European Council is expected to have an exchange of views on the actions to be taken at national level and to endorse the country specific recommendations proposed by the Commission to guide member states in their structural reforms, employment policies and national budgets.

In the case of Malta, the Commission concluded that Malta faced important entrenched challenges that affect the sustainability of its public finances and its potential growth, and made five recommendations to help Malta improve its economic performance.

It is unlikely that during the upcoming European Council meeting there will be an exchange of views on these recommendations for Malta..  It is important to note that these Commission recommendations for improving economic performance to a large extent converge with the government's own  strategy for achieving a balanced budget.

Of  much more concern is the Commission recommendation on excessive government deficit in Malta. The inclusion of Malta in the excessive deficit procedure has now been approved by Council. The Commission is questioning the viability of the government's stability programme submitted last April, and, according to its spring forecasts, Malta's deficit will reach 3.7% in 2013 and 3.6% in 2014. It concludes that the government should take effective action by 1 October, in order to bring down the deficit to 3.4% in 2013 and 2.7% in 2014. This matter will certainly feature significantly in the informal contacts which the Prime Minister and his delegation will have with Commission officials and EU leaders.

The second important item on the formal agenda is an evaluation by EU leaders of the Compact for Growth and Jobs. This Compact is intended to boost competitiveness, economic growth and employment, in particular youth employment and fast-acting growth measures to sustain the financing of the economy.

Herman Von Rompuy, President of the European Council, dedicated almost entirely to youth unemployment his customary invitation letter to EU Heads of Government. He stated, “The June European Council will be an opportunity to mobilise efforts at all levels around one shared objective: to get motivated young people back to work or education. We must give them the guarantee that they will be either in training, further education or employment within four months of leaving school.”

Youth employment is a subject upon which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has also been focussing both during the election campaign and now as head of government. Indeed the Youth Guarantee Programme features prominently in the Labour Party's election programme.  Points 85 and 86 of this programme commit a Labour government to provide either further education or employment to all Maltese youths over 16 years of age.  

In anticipation of the June European Council Prime Minister Muscat has already raised the stakes on this subject by addressing it at the Council of European Socialists meeting in Sofia on Saturday 22 June. He encouraged his colleagues to stand “side by side to make the best out of the Youth Employment Guarantee ... while looking forward to staying one step ahead on innovative policymaking.”

At the June European Council he will no doubt insist that all the preparatory work and institutional consultations that are necessary should be completed as early as possible so that the programme will start as planned in January 2014.  Furthermore, the Prime Minister intends to propose that the Youth Employment Guarantee will include schemes for the promotion of self employment among youths.

The third main item on the agenda of the European Council concerns industrial competitiveness. This is another topic of particular interest to Malta. The success or otherwise of the government's policies in the social, education and health sectors depends on its ability to generate economic growth, and industrial competitiveness is certainly one of the basic elements needed to achieve this growth.

In addition to the discussions on the above items, the European Council is expected to adopt conclusions in the area of Economic and Monetary Union following suggestions by President Herman Von Rompuy. Furthermore, EU leaders will take stock of the progress reached in the implementation of the measures agreed during the December 2012 European Council on a banking union.

Always under the EMU heading, the European Council will hold a discussion and endorse Latvia's application to adopt the Euro as its currency.

There may well be other items on the agenda as recommended by the preparatory General Affairs Council ministerial meeting that took place on Tuesday, 25 June, and which was tasked to prepare draft conclusions for the European Council.

Very often the success of European Council meetings depends largely on the opportunities it provides for informal discussions and for informal contacts among EU leaders.  In my view this informal aspect is particularly important for Malta’s Prime  Minister. He is new to the job, and consolidating a good personal working relationship and personal chemistry with other EU leaders and top Commission officials is important.  This will help him learn where to knock for support when needed.

Developing good working relationships with other EU leaders is particularly important for Prime Minister Muscat in view of Malta’s EU Presidency in 2017. As President of the rotating presidency he will need to have the stature and credibility among EU leaders necessary for the success of  the Malta Presidency programme. 

Tarcisio Zammit, former Ambassador to Belgium and former Representative to the EU Political and Security Committee.