In the US, President Joe Biden is promoting the project of heavy investments in the digital sectors. He wants the country to recover its full technological capacity (if it has ever lost it) in order to be able to supply from its own territory the state of the art technological tools that would serve to renew America’s industries. The aim would be for such industries not to have to source their inputs from foreign contractors.
In the European Union, huge efforts are being made on a wide front under the leadership of the European Commission to mobilise investments and establish policies that would make the EU a leading digital power. New and stringent European laws that go in this direction are being promulgated while a substantial portion of monies available (as with the Recovery and Resilience Fund) are being allocated to digital projects.
In this area, significant measures have been taken in Malta to boost the development of the digital economy. Indeed, the island will be devoting a large part of its receipts from the Recovery and Resilience Fund to digital projects. However, I’m afraid we will need to demonstrate much greater commitment to actually adopt a comprehensive digital policy. It should also lead to many more young people receiving instruction in basic digital technologies and their development – rather than just in the uses to which these technologies can be put.
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GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
Recent tensions between the “Western” allies and Russia over the Ukraine have brought Europe again close to the ancient threat of war – one that we believed had disappeared forever.
During the whole episode, I have been surprised that all news about what has occurred and all analysis remained rooted in considerations that were of a military nature. Obviously these were important, but one can hardly rely only on them to understand how matters should be dealt with, if we really wish, for the sake of peace, to achieve a just and enduring modus operandi.
Extensive relations – complex and historical – bind together Russia, the Ukraine and their neighbours: cultural, ethnic, social, commercial. They give rise to fears, expectations, friendships and antagonism, both hidden and open. They need to be taken into account.
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ELECTIONS
The looming elections will give rise to logistic challenges caused by Covid-19 that have never been experienced before. How will people caught in quarantine vote? How will public meetings be held? How effecitve are and will be the house visits that election candidates carry out? What will happen if individuals who are playing crucial roles in the electoral process get sick?
Similar queries are being raised in France, which will have been through a presidential election by mid-May.
The manner by which the pandemic’s impact quickly swings from a high rate of infections and deaths, to more “tolerable” levels makes for uncertainties in how electoral preparations should be laid out. For this could mean that arrangements which make sense when a campaign is starting could end up as less than adequate at its mid-point or towards its end.