Regularly over the years, the question is raised regarding whether the Maltese are at all interested in what happens abroad and in foreign policy. Frequently diplomats posted to embassies here note how the Maltese people do not show much interest in what happens outside our shores.

I doubt whether this approach could be considered as specific to this island, or whether it could just be explained by noting how Malta is a very small location and so life is lived like in a provincial cage. I remember the first time I visited New York and followed the TV news there, I was amazed how nothing that happened outside the city got coverage (at a time when radical international upheavals were occurring) and very little even about the rest of the US.

Even so, the lack of interest in international developments by the Maltese is regrettable. Given our tiny dimensions and its openness, Maltese society must show towards what is happening in foreign parts an awareness of all important international moves that could affect our situation. This doesn't apply just to the people in charge of national business, but to all citizens who might be affected by what is going on in Europe and beyond.

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PRIORITIES...

Europeans are not only facing the challenge of how to sustain their security and defence policies at a time when the NATO alliance has been going lame.

If, in the meanwhile, one considers the issues that have straddled the EU agenda since the last European Parliament elections, plus the stagnation that developed in French politics and the recent elections in Germany, one finds that the following issues became the subject matter of debates and controversy: immigration; the erosion of European competitivity; the burdens created by the campaigns against climate warming; inflation and in certain countries the increase in housing costs and uncertainties about pensions...

For millions of Europeans these issues concern essential priorities. Linked to security and defence objectives, how will priorities be established?

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PRIVATE CALCULATIONS

The model that is again being propagated from the US is that public management can be run like it is the private sector: If "excess" spending develops in one area or another, then just bring an axe to it. Elon Musk, for whom ordinary people are hardly better than flies, is organizing the relative programme.

I was however impressed by one development about how he is undertaking cuts in spending. It was reviewed by former tax commissioners who served in the past under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. Musk and his team, now charged with how to economise on federal expenditures, have liquidated many jobs in services which collect federal taxes. But no private company starts to economise by first paralysing the financial department which manages its accounts receivable. At a critical time, that would make the entity receive less income. The former commissioners warned that this was bound to happen with the cuts engineered by Musk.