Last Thursday we had the very great please pleasure of welcoming the Prime Minister, Mr Joseph Muscat, to the first of our relaunched series of The Malta Business Weekly business breakfasts. The subject of the event was Malta’s Thriving Economy and we were delighted that the prime minister chose to take the opportunity to raise a number of key issues including the announcement of Malta’s signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with China.
The prime minister’s speech was interesting, engaging and informative, which, I am sure, is why it was given such extensive coverage not only in The Malta Business Weekly and The Independent (as you might expect), but also on the major TV channels and elsewhere.
The opportunity offered by inviting our politicians to step outside of their dusty sweat-soaked arenas of rhetorical and ideological combat, that is parliament, and to instead mingle with the business community more directly in the perhaps more hospitable environs of the Hilton Hotel, for breakfast, was to facilitate a more collegiate approach to business discussion.
By stepping outside of the maelstrom that is the traditional context of political discourse we can gain a greater sympathy for other perspectives, developing a shared understanding of the problems we face, and the opportunities that exist for addressing them, while dispensing temporarily with the ideological certainties of political affiliation. By standing back from the challenges we face, perhaps we can see different ways forward.
By taking politics out of a political context, events like these allow guest speakers to shed the armour of partisan intellectual struggle and adopt a more open manner. Perhaps most indicative of the atmosphere of the event was that Dr Mario de Marco was able to contribute to the discussion. The point here is not the question that Dr de Marco asked, but that he felt able to contribute to the discourse, by asking the Prime Minister his question; the overall effect was positive, constructive, and perhaps even jovial.
One of the aims of The Malta Business Weekly is to advance the level discussion, in Malta, on matters related to business, finance and economics, while remaining aloof from the gritty (but important) coal face of politics. In this, and as in other areas, the business breakfast was a success. All guests’ questions were relevant and challenging, yet never less than polite. And responding in kind the prime minister was thorough and detailed in his replies. Questions were not vetted for suitability and all who wished to ask a question were given the opportunity.
The prime minister showed great statesmanship in making himself available for what might lightly be called “cross examination,” while all guests showed characteristic professionalism in the way they clearly and concisely articulated their concern, before then patiently listening to the Prime Minister’s response. The Malta Business Weekly business breakfast, from now on, is a regular event in the business calendar and, building on the precedent of this event, in a constructive yet challenging fashion we will continue to bring together key figures from business, politics and the economy to discuss matters impacting on Malta’s business stakeholders.