There can no longer be any doubt that the Brexit issue has now reached a very dangerous cliff edge. On their part, the “Europeans” are tied to the position that they will not change anything in what was agreed with the May administration. Over the weeks, any temptation to consider adopting a greater “flexibility” that could have arisen in Germany, Poland, Ireland and maybe Sweden and the Czech republic soon got swept away.

From the perspective of the Johnson government, the diplomatic response has been set to a “kamikaze” mode that will inevitably push the UK towards a no-deal outcome with the EU; alternatively leading – if no-deal is blocked by internal British political forces – to institutional chaos.

Even if some miraculous solution is found by which the two sides can exit from the impasse by agreement, a deep sense of bitterness will remain between them, as well as inside the UK, across the British people. In past centuries  such a crisis could have triggered acts of war. At least today, such an outcome is not plausible, at least by way of armed warfare.  The same though hardly applies to the prospects of a commercial and/or financial war.

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Helena

That the government has nominated Helena Dalli as the Maltese member of the European Commission for the new mandate that starts this November, was very good news indeed. For as long as I have been following closely the way by which Helena has structured her political activity, I have been impressed by the intelligence and straightforwardness she deploys to counter problematic situations and to push for appropriate responses.

Her name has mostly been associated with reforms in the field of social equality but over the years, with her advice and initiatives, she was influential in other directions as well. Like in relations with trade unions, Mediterranean policies, and different sectors of the European domain. Meanwhile, one could only admire how she successfully reinforced her academic competences – which in my view demonstrated the seriousness of her commitment to political affairs while always remaining loyal to the values of democratic socialism.

Here’s wishing her all the best so she can continue with her good work now from within the new European Commission.

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Bilingualism

We have become accustomed to the idea that in our country, bilingualism prevails; but how true is this?

In Belgium, where it is said, a similar situation can be found (even if actually two more modes of speech exist, but let’s focus on the two major ones), bilingualism occurs because the territory holds two “tribes” with their own different maternal language.

In our case, given a population that is primarily of Maltese origin, English is a language that has been adopted from the outside, true, but which for many serves as the main or even only language of social expression. Linguistic competition in this country is not political, as in Belgium, but cultural, economic and social. This implies that when decisions are being taken where the factor of language becomes very important ... as in education... we have to watch out not to adopt uncritically European models of bilingualism based on realities that are unlike ours.