Everybody’s convinced that fundamental changes are occuring in the structures of the population resident in Malta – changes that shall continue to happen in coming years and which will be impacting in a big way the character and identity of the country.
An agreement also seems to exist regarding the need for a national policy that would define how we should face up to this challenge. Preferably the policy would be based on consensus so as not to become another political football. Apart from the question regarding how such a consensus could be established, there has to be complete agreement about the nature of the problem.
Necessarily the first step to achieve this must be to set up a picture that would as clearly as possible show how the population is changing and how it could continue to change, in line with the different options that might be chosen to guide future development. This kind of approach should not provide scope for political turmoil since it is rather technical and seeks to understand what could happen in our society if one option is chosen, or yet another one.
However, what worries me is the fact that apparently, no effort is being made to set out the possible scenarios of our population in the future.
***
PRICE OF LAND, PRICE OF PROPERTIES
We’re building too many hotels. We’re building too many flats. We’re building too many offices. We get to hear these warnings time after time.
And actually the truth is that construction never ceases.
Meanwhile, property prices, even for small units, continue to rise. The same applies for rents, short lets or long term. Which encourages the building of yet more hotels, flats and offices. We seem to be on a spiral that incessantly drives up the price or value of buildings, even as the threat of a crash inspires the warnings we get about the issue. The dangers that follow from the emergence of excess building units have materialised even for a Superpower like China which is facing an enormous crisis in this sector. But the same does not seem apply to Malta, a micro state. What is going on?
***
BIT BY BIT
In recent years, the EU has been passing through a change in how it is run that will have huge consequences. The process by which this change is being introduced moves forward softly softly (if that is the right turn of expression) and at least in Malta, it is rarely mentioned and note of it is only rarely taken.
The change covers how the EU is adopting a security and defence policy which (and it cannot be otherwise) is leading to a stage where beyond the economic, social, environmental and cultural initiatives for which it was well known up to not so long ago, military initiatives also become salient in the EU’s action programmes. With time, the thrust and importance of these initiatives will be reinforced.
Maltese and Gozitan citizens are not aware of this because the main communication channels and the government keep silent about what is going on.