It was quite the right idea to start preparing a plan for how the country should organise its exit from the state of crisis it had to maintain during the months (still ongoing) during which we needed to primarily counter the damage being done by the Covid-19 pandemic. Other European countries are doing the same, conscious of the challenge to get things back to “normal” as soon as possible.
The aim is also for the recovery plan to take into account the problems and difficulties being encountered by members of all social strata, if not all individuals.
The methodology being adopted is valid, since it covers extensive consultations bottom up, and not just the other way round.
While all sectors need to be given due attention, economic aspects shall be crucial. If they remain uncertain, the peace of mind that must be a central focus for the “new” normality could be eroded and the stability which is essential to the whole process undermined.
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MALTESE DESERT...
The warning that the Maltese climate is drying up and heating at a rate that will soon classify the islands as a desert makes for disquieting news. To rein back this problem in a short while, what Malta can do will be far from sufficient.
Then, to contain it locally we would need huge volumes of water. They can only be obtained via “artificial” means relying on greater use of energy. The sources we depend upon for this up to now (oil and natural gas – coal was thankfully taken off the list some years back) are considered to be contributors to the phenomenon by which the global climate has continued to heat up.
The European Union is committed to the process of making it imperative for its members to decrease not increase use of the energy sources on which Malta now depends.
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PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
I suspect that since the Maltese Parliament started to broadcast, first on radio, then on TV, public interest in its affairs has declined not improved. Previously, the print media, especially in the English language, would daily publish detailed reports about what was being said during debates.
Newspapers would send to the House sittings their high calibre journalists who would deliver clinical and precise reports. The “Times of Malta” was pre-eminent in this approach although other papers also had very good reporters.
Today, the print media report less than anything about what is going on in Parliament, except when special circumstances prevail, or sometimes, in abridged stories that give little feel for how parliametary debates are developing.
True, the print media have seen their sales shrink enormously but even in their online versions, parliamentary reports are nowhere to be found. It is quite probable that both Parliament and the media have lost the “market” of readers who would not spend time viewing and listening to ongoing parliamentary debates but who might have been prepared to follow a clear account of House proceedings brought to them in a sustained and informative manner.