One of the main aims of the European Union, as specified in the Lisbon strategy, is the move towards full employment. This will only be achieved if the general economic environment in which enterprises operate is improved.

What chances are there that this will happen and what can the new member states, including Malta, expect?

Some facts need to be highlighted.

First, the European Union is already the biggest single market in the world. Enlargement will bring the total number of its consumers to 453 million. This will benefit the consumer but it will also strengthen the EU's position within the wider global economic environment.

Secondly, with enlargement the EU is expected to become the largest exporter in the world, having a share of almost 20 per cent of world exports. The removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers will also stimulate trade within the EU while shifting employment from labour-intensive to skill-intensive sectors should increase productivity (DG-Enterprise report, April 2003).

All this is expected to provide a significant boost to economic growth and prosperity in the acceding countries. Not all of them, however, will develop at the same rate. A lot will depend on how much foreign investment they manage to attract.

Peripheral regions, like Malta, start with a disadvantage. They can, however, learn from past experience and develop strategies, practices and innovative ways of thinking that would enable them to overcome the initial obstacles.

One of the essential goals of enlargement is to narrow the economic and social gap between the old and the new states, in accordance with a policy of "convergence" which would benefit the 25.

Malta, like the other countries, will benefit from the EU's structural funds. It is up to us to choose the areas in which we want to spend them; and it is important that we spend them judiciously and well.

It is part of the MEP's job, as I see it, to be fully informed about every funding opportunity that exists and to make sure that this information is passed on to the relevant bodies.

The EU Commission has warned against the danger that funds may be lost on account of a country's administrative inability to absorb them. Malta must make sure that this does not happen.

Research has shown that small and medium-sized enterprises can profit from the opportunities offered by the enlarged EU market, provided they are prepared to be innovative and to adapt their strategies to the new environment.

Education for entrepreneurship, access to finance, simplification of bureaucratic procedures, upgrading of the infrastructure and better legislation are necessary to support and encourage such ventures.

The European Charter for Small Enterprises (Feira, June 2000) puts all these concerns at the heart of policy-making in the EU. They are also, by and large, the concerns of tourism, the backbone of the Maltese economy.

Education and innovation are crucial if we want our country to avail itself of the opportunities offered by enlargement. Although the number of young adults receiving tertiary education in Malta has multiplied more than tenfold under recent Nationalist administrations, the percentage of the population aged 20 - 24 having completed at least upper secondary education is still the lowest among the countries of the enlarged Europe. The employment rate of women is also the lowest of all the 25.

There are clear and close links between these two facts. Statistics show that qualified female graduates are as likely to find a job as their male counterparts. It is among the other sectors of the population that the disparity exists.

Here, too, the first Maltese MEPs have an important role to play. First, they must make sure that the problem is kept on the country's agenda. Secondly, they must establish close links with all the social partners - employers, unions and the government - to ensure that all the resources and opportunities made available by the EU are tapped until the imbalance is redressed.

As a person with a lifelong commitment to education and a passionate dedication to the cause of Malta's joining the European Union, I have accepted the invitation to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming elections to the European parliament. I have done this in the hope that I will be given the chance to work hard, by word and deed, to see that the benefits of membership are shared, justly and fairly, by all.