Moment of truth

Like all EU applicant countries, Malta is positioning itself through difficult negotiations to qualify for the next EU enlargement.

Maltese negotiators, who have the prospects of an imminent referendum in mind, have yet to wait for final adjustments by the EU on the availability of funds and possible concessions during the final negotiation stages before they start campaigning for local popular support.

It will be an uphill struggle because, by the time that stage is reached, the Maltese electorate would be up to its eyes in turbulent economic waters. And the segment of the electorate which will be most restless will be the business class which has, in the main, traditionally supported the PN and its EU policy but has been squeezed by taxation to the point of exhaustion.

These same quarters know more than anyone else that penal rates of taxation do not make economic or political sense. They would opt for a tax regime where, through hard work, risk and success, they could aspire to fair rewards.

There is a prevailing undercurrent in local business circles which is reinforcing the conviction that the PN's so-called market-compatible policies and business friendliness was more apparent than real. Businessmen are realising that, the fat cats apart, they were left to their own devices by a government that has been more than three years in office and had the necessary parliamentary majority to fertilise the economic soil.

They are joined by the middle class and the upwardly-mobile generation of workers who had left the proletarian ranks and aspired to entrenched positions from which they could defend, or at least safeguard, their social and material acquisitions.

This broad segment of the electorate believes in a market-orientated economy which liberates enterprise. Where this happens, the power of a self-reliant, outward-looking middle class is augmented. This class is the key to the future of democracy and it is this middle class, consisting of self-employed businessmen and skilled workers, which is the core of a free society.

It is the class which bore the brunt of the government's mismanagement and which the inefficient and bloated local bureaucracy has flogged mercilessly.

For the electors, the uppermost issue that comes to mind has to do with their own and their country's economic survival. The issue of Malta's EU membership can wait and, in any case, it has to fit in with their best interests. Malta's best interests can best be determined and safeguarded by the Maltese people and their representatives and not by far-away politicians based in Brussels.

This scenario is already largely in place. It will solidify further in due course.

With unemployment rising, exports falling, inflation peaking up, and investment fatigue persisting, the urge to change course is becoming desperate. New blood and new ideas are of the essence. The driving force must emerge from the Maltese electorate and nowhere else.

The enterprising segment of the Maltese electorate will be the spur.

The return to sanity will be slow and will necessarily have to start from small beginnings.

At all costs, public spending has to be redimensioned and the interminable haemorrhage must be staunched. The economy must somehow be given an incentive particularly with a view to attracting foreign investment.

Malta must seek to live up to its vocation as a regional hub with business contacts radiating in all directions.

Our geographic and strategic location must be exploited to the limit and the topmost priority is to optimise foreign earnings and to achieve growth.

True progress can be made only if those who create it with their own hands find their reward in it.

It is for this reason that the social partners - businessmen and trade unions - must be effectively brought in the government's confidence and allowed to have a say in shaping the economic environment in which they work.

As the moment of truth approaches, the electorate will increasingly understand the necessity that the impressive collection of supernumeraries dominating the government and the economic scene must be removed. History, in its great moments, tolerates, in positions of authority, only those men capable of directing their own course.

The conviction is growing that the casuistry of recent years is not going to suffice even to those who scrupled least.

The present is painful. But the prospects could be magnificent.