Malta’s current flirtation with NATO is anything but an enjoyable show. Following the renewal of membership in the Partnership for Peace programme (a huge mistake), there was the association of the Maltese Parliament with the NATO parliamentary assembly, where the government even sent its representative. And last week the foreign affairs minister got invited to formal meetings of the NATO gathering in Washington and was in attendance.
I disagree absolutely with these developments. They have the effect of seriously eroding the country’s neutrality, which in my view is our nation’s most important achievement next to Independence. Those who consider such views as a brew of obsolete Mintoffianism are failing to see any farther than the tip of their nose, if that. Surely, on a personal level, I can hardly be identified as some Mintoff fanatic. Equally I cannot be considered as some anti-Yankee: much to the contrary and for many reasons.
The national interest of the Maltese island is what it is and what we want it to be: the experience of centuries points out that it is to be found in the status of neutrality. The association with NATO that is being built up as a result of the ongoing flirtation is completely against this national interest.
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EXCESSIVE DEFICIT
It is true that there is no need for alarm over the deficit in the Maltese budget, which is considered “excessive” because it exceeds 3 percent of Malta’s Gross Domestic Product. The government’s plan to keep it in check is a reasonable one; and the national debt is well below the 60 per cent of GDP which functions as another cardinal rule of the European Stability and Growth Pact.
Nevertheless one still needs to monitor closely how government expenditures evolve. It would be a mistake if the expectation is that they will be sustainable on the back of the substanial economic growth rates registered in recent years. For if growth rates slow down, what would happen?
The need is to continually strive to keep state expenditures subjected to tightly planned controls.
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EUROPEAN NATIONALISM
One of the biggest European tragedies since the 1930s has been the takeover of the nationalist cause by extreme elements, mainly from the right, which now dominate it. After Nazism had sampeded it towards the worst atrocities, today’s extreme right are driving it according to xenophobic and repulsive socio-economic dogmas.
However European nationalism was born from the values that were set out during the century of the Enlightenment and it was responsible for the progress that was experienced in Europe in all sectors of human life. The accomplishment of democracy. Of equality and social protection. Of universal access to education and culture. Nationalism launched the progressive programmes that modernised the European continent.
True, at the same time it gave rise to a competitive race between European nations which sought to maximise their resources in Europe and beyond. But this was only one of the options ushered in by nationalism.
Because of how the extremes have appropriated the cause of nationalism in Europe, the memory of the benefits it brought have been effaced.