regarding the national finances of eurozone members that they all needed to observe. This was done because to the contrary of other currencies, the euro was being circulated in territories which were run according to separate national budgets, as presented by their governments. Other currencies were "backed" by one national budget, whether federal as in the US, or unitary as in Japan.
Euro rules were first framed in the Stability and Growth Pact of the 1990's. They were strengthened and made more elaborate during the financial crisis of the years 2008 - 2012. Among other criteria, they relate to how big a deficit should be allowed in the annual government budget and the extent to which the national debt should be allowed to climb.
The question arises about whether these rules still fit today's circumstances, which are much different to when the rules were first drafted. It is a pity though that the same circumstances of today hardly allow space for a serious evaluation of that query.
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COHESION
The coming weeks will be interesting for those observers of the Catholic Church whose focus will not be on its sacred nature as a community (which it is for hundreds of millions of believers) but on its existence as a multinational organization with a history that spans the millenia.
A leading challenge for any organization having only a portion of the complex characteristics that belong to the Catholic Church would be that of remaining coherent in its actions with the objectives it recognizes as belonging to its mission. In a way or another, the Church always had to face up to this challenge. The fact that it has survived shows that for better or for worse, it succeeded in this aim.
Beyond the pastoral and theological issues which will be highlighted during the selection of the next Pope, there will be the organizational challenges of how the Church could keep operating coherently. While it will be successful in this, my guess is it won't necessarily occur according to how those who consider the Church as a doctrinal and pastoral entity believe it should happen or how they would like it to happen.
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PASSPORTS
I disagreed with the golden passports scheme (as it got dubbed) that in recent years the Malta government operated. In my view citizenship should be acquired by birth or family ties. But this was my personal opinion.
The Malta government had the full sovereign right to decide how to grant a passport and to whom (as happened). Even the EU's Advocate General considered the matter in this light. The EU's Court of Justice decided otherwise.
It's an erroneous decision taken for subterranean reasons. The point that Malta is the smallest EU member no doubt had a weighting in its formulation. Meanwhile, the larger member states are allowed to take decisions about their citizenship in the most mysterious ways, also for hidden reasons. That is not considered to be important.
Malta's economic and social progress has been predicated on the sovereignty it acquired with Independence. I always believed that membership of the EU would undermine this sovereignty. What will the EU next decide in order to continue undermining the exercise of Malta's sovereignty? The status of neutrality?