The European Commission has proposed that Spain and Portugal should not pay a fine for having failed to honour the obligations they entered into to keep their budget deficits in line with the criteria set out by the Stability Pact that binds eurozone countries. Year in year out, they had been given targets laid out under the Pact which they had to reach to decrease their deficits. The targets set were not reached.

According to the Commission, political and economic reasons arising from the present situation of the European Union justify why, despite what the rules stipulate, the two countries should not be “punished” by having to pay fines. The rules should be interpreted and applied in a “flexible” and “intelligent” manner, the Commission insisted.

I agree that the two countries should not be fined. But not for the reasons advanced by the Commission. If there is a pact adopted by all, laying down rules to be observed, then these should be respected.

I agree because the pact itself, and the rules that follow from it, are not viable. The arrangement is comparable to a building that has been erected on defective foundations. To solve the problem while staying with the same foundations, one keeps engines posted around the building to ensure that when one of the outer walls is buckling, it gets pushed back into place.

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2 no, one yes

I received a number of messages by way of comment on what I wrote in this blog, regarding how the private lives of politicians are being splashed in the social media or wherever. This was in the wake of the input on the subject by PN MP Claudette Buttigieg.

One could only keep smiling wryly at the content of some messages. Here is the gist of it: Two wrongs do not make a right.

How sweet.

One wrong on its own, so long as no one copies it, then does become a right. Necessarily so: since “no one” criticizes it. The hypocrisy is so blatant.                        

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Magic

The initiative undertaken by the radio station Magic Malta is commendable: it is broadcasting warnings (at least, I heard them on this station) to users of the social media who publish there, details about their private lives.

They do so by way of keeping friends and widening their contacts. Still as the warnings being broadcast note: are all these so-called “friends” truly people one does know and cherish?

It seems as if young people are the worst affected by this urge to have as many “friends” as possible. But not only they.

To narrow and dim the new horizons that the internet has opened would be a mistake. It is a tool that is developing a new realization as to how we all belong to one world.

However at the same time it has opened a new and wideopen channel that offers scope for voyeurism, bullying, blackmail and fraud, among other vices. It is most worthwhile that ordinary citizens are being kept aware of this threat.