From January 1, 2024, a new EU environmental tax on shipping will make our imports and exports more expensive. Malta only started a public discussion on the negative impacts of the inclusion of maritime transport in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) a month ago.
Why did it take three years for the business sector to react to the new EU law while it was still under discussion, now that it is too late and after the law has passed?
It has taken protracted negotiations with all member states to pass this law. All the main stakeholders: permanent representation of member states, the Council of Ministers, European Parliament, European Commission, national parliaments, main stakeholders in both the physical transport chain and the ship management sector were all supposed to have been involved in this co-decision legislative process.
So, what went wrong? Why has the business sector reacted as if it was taken completely by surprise? We need to learn from what happened to prevent a recurrence. We need to have a more effective system that brings together the government, parliament, our representatives in the European Parliament and the social partners to scrutinise proposed legislation that is of national interest.
On April 25, EU legislators finally confirmed that specified emissions from maritime transport will be included in the EU ETS from January 1, 2024. On May 16, amendments to both the EU ETS Directive (2003/87/EC) and the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Regulation (2015/757) were formally adopted as EU law.
It has taken a long time to get to this point: from initial approval by the European Parliament to include maritime transport’s emissions in the EU ETS (and the public consultation phase) in 2020, to the European Commission’s initial proposal in July 2021 (as part of the EU’s broader ‘Fit for 55’ package of legislation), to the subsequent rounds of amendments proposed by the European Parliament.
The Malta Chamber of Commerce told The Sunday Times of Malta on November 4: “We believe that, as a country, we often find ourselves lost in trivial political discussions while EU dossiers of vital importance and which profoundly affect us end up being overlooked.” Agreed. But is the business sector alert to what is happening in Brussels?
As a people, we tend to consider as ‘foreign affairs’ matters related to the EU when, in fact, EU affairs are domestic affairs. We are sharing sovereignty with the EU institutions in at least 85 policy areas. Our national MPs should concern themselves with the EU as much as our MEPs as both are, or should be, involved in the legislative process.
Good Europeans?
We tend to operate as a scattered archipelago without talking to each other and coordinating our actions enough as a country. We are still very parochial in our politics and business. What happens in our constituency and company is more important than what happens in Malta, the European Union and the rest of the world.
Although we have one of the most open economies in the world, as we practically import and export everything, we are still more insular than global in our mindset.
It is not easy for a small country like ours to cope with the volume of work within the EU structures where vital decisions shaping our daily life are deliberated and approved. We must do all we can to work smarter. Sharing our sovereignty with the EU must not mean that we lose our sovereignty completely.
Would France be ready to give up its seat on the UN Security Council and give it to the EU?- Evarist Bartolo
We cannot afford not to do the difficult work needed to ensure that our national interests are safeguarded in EU laws. If we do not influence them enough to also express our national interests, such EU laws will not only be shaped without us but also against us.
We must all work together as one team in Brussels and in Malta, the government, our MPs in Brussels and in Valletta, the social partners, to scrutinise proposed legislation and take an active part in shaping it and not react to it when it is too late.
At every level and in every sector, we need to overcome our parochialism and develop a global consciousness: local has become global and global has become local, especially in our case where we depend on the rest of the world for our trade, tourism, manufacturing, services, investments and markets.
We will make ourselves smaller and more insignificant if we do not work together to safeguard and promote our national interests within the EU and beyond.
This is becoming more urgent as the ‘bigs’ within the EU are increasing their pressure to weaken the influence of the ‘smalls’ by promoting qualified majority voting to abolish unanimity voting on key issues.
New rules have to be drawn up for the effective governance of an enlarged EU of 36 member states. Fifteen countries of today’s EU are small and medium sized and we must form a coalition with them. All of us ‘smalls’ will still have a veto in approving the EU’s new rules. We must make sure that any rule changes do not make us lose our sovereignty completely to become colonies in a hegemonic EU of the ‘bigs’.
A fortnight ago, the European Parliament voted to change the EU treaties – including the controversial proposal to abolish unanimity voting on key issues. Even MEPs from Donald Tusk’s PO-led Civic Coalition voted against the report. “Europe needs repairing in many aspects,” said the former European Council president. But, he warned, the “stupidest method” to achieve this is to fall into naïve “Euroenthusiasm”, which was one of the reasons for Brexit.
No doubt, we will be lectured to be good Europeans to sacrifice our ‘narrow’ national interests. To make the EU a major geopolitical player with strategic autonomy, would France be ready to give up its seat on the UN Security Council and give it to the EU and put its nuclear capability under the control of the EU?
Evarist Bartolo is a former education and foreign minister.