Opportunism vs opportunity

With an impressive haste J. G. Vassallo castigated Ranier Fsadni's analysis about "the seedbed of the PN's current unpopularity" which appeared in The Times just 48 hours earlier.

In his comments, Mr Vassallo referred to the 1998-2003 Nationalist government's concentration on the EU issue as an "opportunistic route". Alfred Sant's freezing of Malta' application to join the European Union loomed very large in the 1998 election campaign.

The Nationalist Party promised to revive the application the moment it was back in harness. And it did so robustly, bravely and even aggressively. The PN had, after all, received an endorsement for its policy on Europe in the elections held in 1981, 1987 and 1992. Its determination to succeed was strengthened by the knowledge of the visible damage done to Malta's reputation in the European capitals by Dr Sant's freezing of our application for membership. Not to mention the financial cost to our economy in the loss of funds we were entitled to as an applicant country and the foreign and home investments which simply dried up, due to the uncertainty created by Dr Sant's foolish and macho action.

Mr Vassallo displays a warped sense of what was opportunistic in the path followed by Eddie Fenech Adami and his government. Not to have fought tooth and nail for joining in the first enlargement of the EU would have prolonged the years of uncertainty and would have deprived us of the opportunities that have come our way since we joined the EU, with the people's consent in the March 2003 referendum and the endorsement given to the PN in the subsequent election a few weeks later.

Of course, during the 1998-2003 period the government had to accept that the MLP or, more precisely its leadership, was hell-bent on using every trick in the book to derail our progress towards membership of the EU. Every move the government made was interpreted as being done at the behest of Brussels and contrary to our interests. Every job lost and every crisis, be it at the drydocks or elsewhere, was used dishonestly by the opposition to harm the prospects of success in the negotiations with the EU.

People in public life who showed their support for membership of the EU were threatened that they would not be kept in their positions once Labour returned to office.

Did Mr Vassallo honestly expect a full-blown restructuring programme, similar to the one pursued once our membership was secured, at a time when Dr Sant was spreading the doom and gloom that would befall us the moment we lost our sovereignty? Having said that, Mr Vassallo's recollection that the government just stood and stared with folded arms and looked the other way does not stand up to scrutiny and indeed is contradictory. As the government then pursued our negotiations in Brussels, all government ministers and departments were heavily involved in the minute preparations that eventually led to the successful completion of the negotiations. They must have done their homework diligently as the package agreed in Brussels was proved to be such a winner that the Maltese electorate gave it the thumbs up not once but twice.

Not surprising that all the predictions made by Dr Sant and supported by columnists such as Mr Vassallo were proved to be just scare-mongering.

Our tongue was accepted as an EU language, our financial package amounted to millions of euros (and it is now secured until 2013), our representation in the European Parliament was to be an effective one... Mr Vassallo's disappointment at how things turned up in the end is tangible. Hence his clutching at straws. He recalled the slogans "a new spring" and a "sound economy" used in the 2003 election campaign.

Regarding the new spring, joining the EU was always meant to be a long-term project which will yield its full potential in years to come. Even so what has happened since our membership of the EU just a year ago, be it in education, in the arts, in workers' training, in trade union and other civil organisations' participation in EU bodies, in the environment, in road construction and, most of all, to our accountability as a nation, point to a new beginning, which, after all, was the message that the slogan intended to convey.

Our EU membership opened up opportunities beyond our wildest dreams. All we need to do is to grab them and exploit them to the full.

As to the sound economy, most of the indicators seem to be pointing in the right direction. Provided we pull together and not let ourselves be divided as we were on the EU issue, there is no reason why we shouldn't succeed. Lawrence Gonzi's determination to get the economy right is equal to Dr Fenech Adami's determination to anchor Malta in the EU, hence it augurs well for our nation. Let's hope such determination is not, for some partisan reason, portrayed as an "opportunistic route" or pursued "in the interest of political expediency".