Real autonomy for Gozo

There is a peculiar cruelty in promising people a compass only to hand them an instrument whose needle spins wildly. For years, successive governments have pledged coherent governance for Gozo; a ministry with clarity, purpose and the authority to safeguard the island’s distinct needs. Yet, what stands today is less a ministry than an administrative orphan, stripped of core competencies and saddled with responsibilities that make little sense.

The recent campaign exposed this with embarrassing clarity. One simple question – Min hu responsabbli għal xhiex? - revealed a governance system so fragmented it borders on parody. Consider the flimsy tents at the fast-ferry terminal: basic infrastructure, yet, not under the Ministry for Gozo at all but Infrastructure Malta. Or the Qbajjar Battery, one of Gozo’s most iconic fortifications, managed not by the Gozo Ministry but by Culture, Heritage Malta and Lands. How can a ministry claim to plan the island’s future when it cannot even protect its own heritage?

Matters deteriorated further after the cabinet reshuffle, which welded Gozo to planning and produced the ungainly Ministry for Gozo and Planning, a structural contradiction in terms. Planning is, by nature, a national function. To yoke it to a single region distorts both national planning and Gozo’s ability to advocate for itself. The result is an institutional hybrid designed for neither purpose, undermining both. Raising the question of how we can have the largest cabinet in history, yet there wasn’t any other Labour MP who was trusted to take the planning or Gozo portfolio instead of Clint Camilleri.

A ministry without real authority over infrastructure, heritage, land, education or health is a title, not an institution. Unless this identity crisis is resolved, Gozo will continue to be managed not by strategy but by patchwork improvisation.

If the present is a fog, the future demands deliberate clarity. Gozo has never lacked regional identity from its brief autonomy under the French to its Civic Council, established decades before Malta adopted local and regional governance. Yet, no experiment in regional administration has endured.

To avoid repeating history, we must understand why earlier attempts failed. The Gozo Civic Council of the 1960s did not collapse because it lacked competence or public trust; it was dismantled because national politics intervened. Malta’s partisan machinery suffocated a functioning model of regionalism.

The lesson is sharp: unless Gozo’s governance is insulated from the shifting winds of Valletta, it will remain perpetually vulnerable.

That is why any new framework must be constitutionally entrenched. Not advisory. Not experimental. A constitutional settlement that defines powers, guarantees autonomy and cannot be abolished by ministerial mood swings.

What constitutional recognition would achieve is, above all, a long-overdue clarity of powers. Authority over Gozo is presently scattered across ministries, agencies and boards; a dispersion that renders accountability little more than an academic aspiration. A constitutionally recognised regional authority would gather these competencies where they naturally belong, development control, local services, resource management, EU funding and community projects, all answerable directly to Gozitans rather than lost in the machinery of central government.

Hand in hand with this comes the need to reimagine the Ministry for Gozo. Instead of performing the unbecoming charade of a micro-state, the ministry would assume its proper role as national coordinator and advocate, not puppeteer. Once genuine powers are vested in regional institutions, the ministry’s function becomes strategic and statesmanlike, rather than a daily exercise in micromanagement.

Authority over Gozo is scattered across ministries, agencies and boards- Luke Said

Constitutional recognition would also allow the structured involvement of civil society to assume the place it has long deserved. Past attempts did not falter because they attracted the ‘wrong species’ but because they were deprived of autonomy and constitutional shelter. Executive authority must rest with elected representatives; anything else is consultation masquerading as governance. Yet, elected officials must be supported by independent experts, NGOs and domain specialists who supply continuity, evidence and island-wide perspective, qualities partisan instinct alone cannot furnish.

It bears recalling that the Civic Council collapsed precisely because it lacked such protection and because Maltese politicians have historically exploited Gozitan parochialism when convenient. A modern framework must be designed to resist that pattern, not repeat it.

Finally, a constitutional status would unlock real access to EU funding. Brussels does not direct funds to territories without recognised governance structures and Gozo’s absence from that map has cost it dearly. Recognition as a ‘special island region’ would open funding streams that now pass the island by. With a regional authority managing its own EU desk and strategic projects, Gozo would no longer tug Malta’s sleeve for leftovers, a matter made all the more pressing now that Malta exceeds the EU’s average GDP while Gozo continues to trail far behind.

Constitutional architecture alone is insufficient. The civic foundations of Gozo must also be restored. For far too long, local councils have been treated as ceremonial curiosities; invited to cut ribbons but excluded from decisions that shape daily life. A pantomime, rather than representation.

A serious country entrusts real power to those closest to communities. Mayors should be properly remunerated, accountable stewards of their towns. Councillors must be equipped with resources and training to deliver on everyday essentials, safer streets, functional infrastructure, cultural life, clean public spaces.

Every EU member state has adopted multilayered governance; only Malta persists with a hyper-centralised model that treats local councils as decorative.

It would be unjust, however, not to acknowledge the work of the current Gozo Regional Council. Operating with severely limited finances and largely consultative authority, it nonetheless manages to coordinate initiatives, sustain inter-council cooperation and give Gozo a modest but real regional voice. Its very existence proves an important point: even with minimal tools, Gozo’s institutions can deliver. Imagine, then, what could be achieved if that council were backed by real constitutional power and proper resources.

Gozo’s potential is immense but potential without power is a mausoleum of ‘might have been’. For decades, the island has been serenaded with affection while denied authority. At some point, a community must stop applauding the lullaby and demand the instruments of self-determination.

With constitutional recognition, strengthened institutions and a clear separation of powers, Gozo can finally move from administrative afterthought to a genuinely empowered region.

These reforms are not abstract theory; they are the practical architecture of dignity and autonomy within a unified state.

History rarely pauses for the hesitant. Nor, now, should Gozo.

Luke Said is a Nationalist Party candidate for the 13th district.