Despite the beautiful and "courageous" phrases that continue to be expressed, European countries are disoriented. On the one hand they have ended up considering Russia as a very serious threat to their security and this not just in the context of the war in the Ukraine. On the other hand, they have come to understand that the support they always expected to get from the US is no longer there. Indeed from a certain perspective, under President Trump as in the case of Greenland, the US are considering Europe not so differently from how according to the Europeans, Russia is doing.
Meanwhile in their attitudes towards China - which could have provided a counter-weight to the American and Russian blocs - the Europeans have remained less than clear about whether they should consider the Chinese as adversaries, as competitors or as potential allies. Then towards other blocs that they could bring closer - as for Latin America - the political will to do so has been extremely hesitant.
To complicate matters, in the main European countries, internally, governments have had to rely on tricky coalition formations. Up to some time ago, coalition structures provided effective governance. Not today.
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A CORPORATIST DEMOCRACY
We are not sufficiently aware of the corporatist dimension in the democracy of this country. As a matter of fact, it was always there. The impact of "commercial" and social corporations on the doings of political parties was always strong, and it was felt over and above the traditional influence of the Catholic Church, not least after this began to weaken fast - by comparison to how it operated in the 1950's and the 1960's, for instance.
Since a certain convergence emerged between the two major political parties about how they regarded society, the future and economic management - and since Malta joined the EU - the actual ways by which politics get done have increasingly come to reflect demands made by the island's constituted bodies, especially if they are influential in the services and construction sectors. Possibly this development has acellerated since the suppression of "frequent" elections. One could even suspect that corporatism has now become so powerful that it is being successful in efforts to shape public opinion.
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OVERPOPULATION
In reality, the argument that is frequently heard about the "overpopulation" of the island - it has now too many people, that's how it goes - basically comes down to the claim that there are too many foreigners. However the strange fact is that the same always happened over the centuries - one way or the other, the case always was that in this island space, foreigners lived side by side with Maltese and did so for only part of their lives. During the British occupation, their military and naval forces stationed here consittuted a substantial colony. The same occurred under the Kngiths of St John, with the garrisons and seamen the Knights maintained.
What might have changed is how at the same time we have had the colonies of foreigners in our midst, many Maltese natives would have - in the past - to go abroad and earn their living in other places. Today the Maltese who leave, do so because they choose to, not because they have no other alternative.