European socialism is not in a good place. True, the governments in the UK and Spain are socialist. But for the rest, socialists seem resigned to being a minority political force, where a few decades ago, they aspired to hold majority support in European societies. It is no consolation that a substatial number of traditional right wing parties do not seem to be in a much better state.

The socialist faction that would like to retain in full the left wing directions of "the past" has been unwilling to change anything of its dogmatic commitment and has shut itself up in its own fortress. The "moderate" faction, on the Tony Blair lines of thirty years ago, continued to give up political ground in compromise after compromise, following an electoralist strategy that came to depend on the latest results of opinion polls. It has become too cautious. Now, any alliance between these two wings of socialism invariably seems increasingly fragile.

The problem is very apparent at the level of the European Parliament, where in the name of the European "ideal", socialists have maintained a strategy that has emarginated them, even as they showed themselves tactically weak and inept.

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DEFENDING THE ENVIRONMENT

Everybody is on the record as a defender of the environment... but how true is this?

It all seems as if the protection of the environment is considered a valid and most important aim, till it clashes with the need to protect certain interests, to pacify certain segments of the electorate, or to ensure that social prejudices are not badly done by.

To complicate matters, as a policy area, the topic is so wideranging that one can boast of being in favour of the environment by what one is doing or endorsing regarding a number of sensitive issues, while doing the opposite across a number of others.

In a parliamentary democracy, it is to be expected that environmental issues become hostage to political struggles. Yet if they get stuck as hostages and there is no forward movement, the outcome could well be catastrophic. Especially for a small island like Malta. Many people in this country are fearing this could happen, without really knowing how to act to prevent such an outcome. 

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CONFIDENCE

To be honest, I must say there never was a time for as long as I can remember when there was not a sentiment of mistrust towards politicians. In Maltese, the polite term of "politiċi" is lately being used to denote them, instead of the slightly derogatory "politikanti". (Among those who contributed most to effect this change of terminology was Dr Guido de Marco.)

Anyway, whether as "politikanti" or as "politiċi", politicians in Malta were always considered by a not insignificant part of the society as people who even if not inherently dishonest, would likely scramble at every opportunity to defend their own personal interests, at the expense of the common good. Yet meanwhile, people still continued to accept that politicians are needed.

The time has come to reflect about what society should expect from political endeavour. To go on referring to statements and documents like Oliver Friggieri's novel "Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux Fjuri" as some benchmark about what is desirable, makes no sense today, if it ever did.

Measures and criteria regarding the expectations to be placed on politicians must be relevant in scope and calibrated to contemporary realities.