By The Honorable Dr Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of the Republic of Malta.
In January 2017, Malta will assume the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time following its accession in 2004.
That means we will be responsible for steering the legislative business of the most senior decision-making body of the EU, taking action on measures that will affect the lives of 500 million citizens.
These include generating economic growth and jobs, ensuring financial stability, doing away with gender imbalance, creating access to new markets, combating climate change, improving access to digital goods and services, progressing a true energy union, and protecting our borders and security. Reform of the Dublin Regulation; elimination of roaming charges; a Cyprus peace deal; the creation of Travel Information and Authorisation Scheme (ETIAS) – these are just a few of the tangible things that we can achieve.
Given the timing of our Presidency, I am reminded the old Irish joke about asking for directions and being told: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here if I were you.”
In the past eighteen months, structures and institutions have been stretched to breaking point by a series of complex, fast-moving and often inter-connected international crises.
Differing views on how best to handle the migration crisis have revealed sharp divides among Member States; the closely related growth in extremism and nationalism has affected the domestic political landscape of many.
The tussle with Russia over Ukraine has tested European resolve for a common security and foreign policy, while instability in north Africa, particularly Libya, threatens the EU Neighbourhood.
The fragile state of the Greek economy, against a backdrop of stalled economic growth, continues to expose weakness in fiscal and monetary policy across Member States.
And, on our watch, we have perhaps the biggest ‘Known Unknown’ of all…Brexit.
That is a formidable cocktail of challenges. Yet, what better place to start from? Our small island in the middle of the Mediterranean looks north towards Europe, south towards Africa, and east towards the Levant. Our shores have seen Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, and British influence, blessing us with a truly pan-European outlook.
We are the smallest, and one of the most enthusiastic of EU members – recent polling put support for the project at 82 per cent, which virtually any other Member States would struggle to match right now.
Malta has enjoyed the fruits of EU membership, and we have positioned ourselves as a dynamic, high-performing economy, with the actual GDP growth for 2015 reaching a high of 6.2% in real terms. Our financial services and ICT sectors have grown exponentially, attracting significant foreign investment.
Now is our time to give something back. First, we must leave our national hats at the door, and truly feel ourselves to be Europeans, playing the “honest broker” role that has worked so well for many of the EU’s smaller countries when they take on the mantle of leadership. The recent Presidencies of Denmark and Belgium spring to mind in this respect. In order to deliver results, we must accept compromises, and the quality of those compromises depends on the good faith between partners that we manage to create.
Second, we need to talk in a language that European citizens can understand. It is little wonder that ordinary people roll their eyes at talk of trilogues, anticis, and Council configurations.
We are two-and-a-half thousand kilometres from the conference rooms and glass towers of Brussels. In some ways, that is an advantage. Anyone who has ever been to Malta, and seen us debate, knows how forthright we can be, whether the subject is football or finance. Therefore, we will try and speak, write, and think plainly. We want to translate the dry, often thankless policy work of the Presidency into concepts that are easy to grasp.
Finally, we believe in trying to find a new kind of leadership. This seems fitting as our Presidency coincides with the 60th anniversary celebrations of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which brought into being the first iteration of the European Union.
The rule of thumb is that when something in Brussels is a success, then 28 (soon to be 27) Member State governments all try and take the credit. But when something goes wrong, or expectations have to be lowered, it is always Brussels’ fault.
That needs to change, if we are to preserve the European ideal that has bound us together for so long. As members, we have to accept that it is often our own differences that prevent consensus, and not some nebulous concept of “the institutions”. That is the first step towards fuelling the kind of debate we need on Europe’s future.
We do not expect that we can solve all of Europe’s ills in the next six months. But we do hope to leave the Union in better shape than when we took over.
