Up to not so long ago, the custom was for celebrations of big political and national events to be organized around commemorative speeches.

It is true that these were experienced as a ritual… which indeed they were… allowing the repetition of rather stereotyped statements. But such “ceremonies” also served to assert continuity with the past.

It would seem that recently the emphasis on continuity has been diluted. Regarding Independence, Freedom, the Republic, Labour Day, and even Malta’s entry in the EU, the public projection of commemorative issues has shifted towards more contemporary topics.

One can understand why this has happened. In our day and age, the issues that matter to people are those that reflect the “here” and “now”. The spread of the social media has served to deepen such ways of looking at things.

Even so, it would be a mistake to totally put aside the historical dimension of what is being commemorated.

People are made of memories.

That the history of his/her family and country, of Europe, becomes unintelligible to the modern individual could be a dangerous development.

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Deputies

Does the Labour Party really need two deputy leaders? Is not one enough?

The same applies to the PN which in recent years adopted a similar organizational structure to Labour’s.

The arrangement by which the posts of two deputy leaders were established in the MLP dates back to the second half of the seventies of the previous century, when elaborate manoeuvres and calculations were being made regarding the succession scenarios to the then leader.

On the basis of a “solution” crafted to meet the needs of the moment, we ended up with an institution that is still in place.

Apparently the PN too introduced the same system in its structures in order to cope with internal political contingencies.

In reality, within a structure that would include the elective post of President of the Party or of General Secretary, tasked with the political organization of party structures, one deputy leader would be sufficient.

Along these lines, the most effective party set-ups in Malta’s modern political history had a one deputy leader profile: they were Labour’s 1966-1971 and the PN’s 1977-1981 teams.

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Financial services

Let me again repeat: the Panama papers scandal will have a different impact to that of Luxleaks.

The target this time will be financial services catering for “very wealthy” people and companies that are relatively small in scale. They’re the kind of financial services in which Malta has specialised over the years.

Political, economic and police investigations will focus on the following sectors: money laundering of all kinds, tax evasion and the hidden funding of corruption by so-called brokerage across frontiers, and identity trafficking.

One could argue that over the years, the financial model developed in this country was extremely stringent, compared to that of Panama, say.

But the expectation, especially in the European Union, will be for regulation to become even stricter. The financial services sector in Malta should prepare as of now, to satisfy swiftly and correctly, the new conditions for reporting and transparency that will be created.