During a quick conversation I had with the executive of a local bank, he explained how frustrated he felt. In his view, with which I agree, while functioning in a competitive mode, a bank has as one of its essential functions, that of lending funds to small scale entrepreneurs who are seeking to launch investment projects in their line of activity.
By his account, so many bureaucratic obstacles are being put in the way of how this is being done that he and his colleagues now find that their main role has become that of braking the enthusiasm of whoever wishes to invest and expand. The bank itself is not to blame for this. It simply has to observe European directives designed to combat money laundering.
On this issue, one can only agree with the aims that define the measures being set from Brussels and Frankfurt. However, it is quite clear that such measures are having a negative impact on the avenues by which small and medium sized enterprises can access funds for their projects.
This is not happening only in Malta. Yet we cannot go on blocking the financial arteries and veins that power the work of smes.
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Exiled from paradise
To understand their mood, just read the comments posted in the social media by PN supporters especially around the websites of newspapers. A similar feeling is apparent among PN main speakers in the Maltese Parliament.
I have already said it here and will repeat it: The speeches and comments remind one of the complaints that would be made by those who feel they have been exiled from a paradise that used to be theirs.
It is natural that after long years in government, a party that loses its grip on power will find itself at a loss. But this happened to the PN six years ago or more. Yet, its leaders still seem to be in mourning, instead of projecting a new image to convince people that the policy package they carry contains more than just lamentation.
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Not just in Malta!
In recent weeks, as I met many people face to face, a point that frequently came up in conversation was about the number of foreigners at present living in Malta. Reference is regularly made to foreigners who find work servicing the needs of Maltese residents, as in restaurants and clothes shops. The complaint here is about how these can hardly speak English, even less Maltese. So the question goes: How can they give proper service?
There is some truth in this. To be sure, I heard the same point being made by people who have no public profile, who belong to the middle classes or “less”, as well as by businessmen even, and professional people.
Then this week in a popular Brussels restaurant I noticed how the waitress who was serving had no French, no Flemish, nor English. She and her clients had a tough time trying to understand each other.
The problem is hardly Malta’s alone! It must necessarily arise in a Europe that has opened its frontiers and allowed all its member states to welcome each other’s citizens. After all, just as in Malta if not more, in other parts of Europe substantial chunks of the population are now made up of foreigners. Actually, many of the clients at the popular Brussels restaurant which I visited were not Belgian.