We frequently get told about plans for this or that sector which are intended to describe the strategy that will be followed over the next few years in a given sector and how it is meant to develop. I am one of those who follow what gets said for quite a number of sectors as I believe that planning is a useful tool. Even when a plan fails to achieve its targets, the work done to determine where its point of departure lies, what the challenges and available resources will be, and how resources are going to be mobilised to face the challenges – all these issues cannot but be of the greatest interest and usefulness. The accumulated information and the outcomes will be of great assistance in bringing together the new programmes that then need to be planned.
However for this to happen, a plan must be written meaningfully. It should describe concretely what its aims are and what the available resources to implement it are going to be. Unfortunately it happens too often that plans remain vague and are not formatted as an action plan but as a wish list.
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SHOCK OR HYPOCRISY?
Valid arguments can be found for and against the way by which two Labour MEPs voted when the candidature of Mrs Roberta Metsola came for election to the presidency of the European Parliament.
It’s been claimed that shockingly, they failed to give her their support and thereby adopted an anti-national stand. It was argued (even by the media) that my friend Alex Agius Saliba behaved in an “infantile” and uncouth manner because he did not rise to applaud when the results of the voting were announced. I understand that there are people who disagree with such behaviour.
What I fail to understand is why Mrs Metsola herself and her colleagues took it so badly. For I do remember the day when she and her colleagues had no problem to vote in plenary against the nomination of Leo Brincat to the European Court of Auditors. So was that not an anti-national stand?
And I remember too how Mrs Metsola when invited to Castille along with a European Parliament delegation refused to shake hands with then Prime Minister Muscat. So was that not also an infantile and uncouth gesture?
Too often the distinction between shock and hypocrisy gets blurred. Unfortunately, this does not only happen within the political cabal but it extends to people in charge of the media.
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THE EXTREMES
It is not so difficult to understand why the two “extremes” from the political left and right are managing to attract substantial support. There exists a consensus (or almost) among all political forces that politically, victories can only be achieved from the centre ground. This has meant that policy proposals from all sides have been converging to the extent that at times they are hardly recognizable from each other.
Moreover in Europe, the regulations and directives of the EU have placed a strait jacket around policy options restricting the range of feasible proposals. More and more voters who have become really fed up with this situation and really want change, are turning to the extremes.