The European Parliament representative office in Malta has conducted a series of consultation meetings between business representatives in order to make a list of priorities for Maltese businesses for the new European Parliament representatives.

The Business Manifesto emphasises “the need to up the efforts on implementation of the SME test and competitiveness proving in the conduct of impact assessment by the European Commission before the presentation of any legislative proposals”. Thus, the local business community is stressing to have a fully functioning system within the European Commission, which itself would be alerted in case of any threat to the livelihood of SMEs with a proposed legislation. In fact, in an ideal world, the European Commission should include with its proposals impact assessments of legislation on the Maltese business sector. Since the European Commission needs to satisfy the needs of all member states and all their diverse regions, the Maltese members of the European Parliament will always have a pivotal role in explaining the specificities of Maltese businesses and garner support from other European Parliament members to defend the needs of the Maltese. Having such studies prepared by the European Commission itself would make the argument of Maltese members of the European Parliament stronger as they are perceived to be less biased.

The business manifesto also states the needs to promote a pro-business mentality “where the younger generations are promoted to become future employers rather than future employees”. I myself dream of youths having innovative ideas which they can turn into a full time job for themselves. I met a young talented Spanish film producer, who won the Malta International Short Film festival, who told me he could not declare the few proceeds he gets from his film as he would be immediately taxed, making his venture’s viability even more difficult. We need an EU which allows micro businesses to mature into bigger businesses and not drown them in taxes, fines and paperwork.

Another priority business representatives identified is to ensure “that peripheral regions and states are given due attention and given a fair opportunity to make their contribution to Europe”. Maltese members of the European Parliament need to explain the specific conditions of Malta and Gozo to their fellow members. Thus is very important that they have a deep understanding of Maltese and Gozitan businesses’ specific problems.

I participated in innumerable consultation meetings with the business community during Malta’s EU accession negotiations. The government has also commissioned a number of specific studies on the wine, meat processing and furniture sectors. I also worked on the preparation of Malta’s industrial policy which studied and sought to give direction to Malta’s industrial sector. All these studies led me to think about the problems that local companies face by being on the periphery of Europe. Transport costs are surely one problem a local exporter faces when compared to for example a company in Milan. The fact that we do not have many raw materials further puts local exporters at a disadvantage as transport costs penalise these entrepreneurs twice – the import of raw material and the re-export of the processed product. If we think about a Gozitan company, these problems are further exacerbated.

Malta cannot be competitive in all sectors and a strategic approach is required so that local human resources are directed to sectors which can sustain a decent standard of living for the local population. On the other hand, Malta cannot concentrate on a few sectors, for example, just tourism and ancillary services. This is because if a crisis arises in this sector, the whole economy would come to a standstill. For example, the tourism sector experienced severe threats due to the threat of pandemic flues. Thus it is important that the economy is balanced with well diversified sectors.

Thus, legislation in the European Parliament, which would jeopardise in any way the diversity of business sectors that make up the Maltese economy, needs to be stopped. This is especially important with regard to the gaming and the financial services sectors.

Imports from third countries that do not respect human rights, European Standards and European Environment legislation also need to be stopped from competing with businesses which pay decent wages, respect the rights of workers and respect EU legislation. I have personally met many businesspeople whose livelihood is continually threatened by this unfair competition. The EU needs to react more to EU imports which do not respect the rules of fair competition.

[email protected]

Fleur Vella is a Labour Party candidate in the forthcoming European parliamentary elections