One can hardly be blamed for concluding that the trade and investment agreement between the EU and Canada has been caught up in complications that border on farce. After German socialists voted to approve the agreement, EU member states believed they had clinched agreement between them for all to sign.

The Belgian government was already in favour. Then Wallonia’s regional parliament piped up to demur. In Belgium, regional parliaments have a say in the approval of international trade agreements.

Wallonia’s chief misgivings related to those provisions of the agreement describing how to deal with complaints by companies against governments which change laws in ways that cause them financial losses. Following much discussion, member states believed they had found a compromise on the matter that would fit Canada. They planned to attach to the treaty an interpretative statement articulating this compromise.

The Walloon parliament was not satisfied.

The issue is extremely embarrassing, for the same problem has already featured – much more sharply – in TTIP, the agreement similar to Canada’s that the EU is negotiating with the EU.

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Economic survey

Every year at budget time, among the documents issued comes a report on the state of the Maltese economy during the nine months of the current year. It contains interesting information, even if substantial chunks of it would have already been published.

However, a major criticism that could be made of the Survey, including for this year, is that it has remained too formulaic: year after year it has retained the same format, practically the same way of saying things. Simply, the data about the economic categories to which the Survey happens to make reference get altered, according to outcomes reported by the office of statistics.

The formula has been followed in the same way for practically thirty years. For instance, the Economic Survey deals at length with manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries, but when it covers financial services or e gaming, it has hardly anything to say. Actually this year, the Survey chose to discuss the operations of the regulatory agencies in these sectors.

Now that activity has got nothing to do with the contribution that they make to the economy. Today between them, the two account for about a quarter of the Maltese economy.

Incredibly the Economic Survey still has nothing to say about this.

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Jeffrey Sachs

American economist Jeffrey Sachs addressed the parliamentary group of the socialists and democrats (S&D) at the European Parliament last week.

I had heard about Sachs but am not really familiar with his work. Even so, I found his presentation most impressive.

It seemed obvious at first that some of the expressions he used to convey his ideas which sounded like slogans, were put forward because he guessed that approach was expected of him. But no, the radicalism of what he said came from conviction. He analysed the mistakes that the EU and the US are making when facing up to globalisation and the arising internal and external challenges (Russia, Brexit, populism, immigration, Syria, climate change).

To be sure, I felt closer to his ideas than to those of many of my friends in the socialist group.