Net gainers or net donors

Times of Malta, Friday 20th March 2009 by Prof. Edward Scicluna

The interview with EU Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite which appeared in The Times last Tuesday misses the whole point at issue. It gives the impression that what matters mostly to the Maltese now is whether it was the Permanent Representative to Brussels, Richard Cachia Caruana or Labour leader Joseph Muscat who was right by a whiff of a few million euros either way, making us marginally net gainers or net donors vis-à-vis the EU.

Let us put the record straight.

As a member of the EU, Malta is gaining significantly in the environmental, social and economic fields through the various standards being imposed on our policy makers and operators, for example with respect to liquid and solid waste management, fiscal discipline and better legislation throughout. This is affecting positively our health, our standard of living and our various rights. It must be said that this would have been more positive had the government not dragged its feet with respect to various directives, besides the infringement this is giving rise to. Furthermore, a better negotiated treaty for various sections of the population would also have meant less suffering and less broken promises.

Coming to the financial package we recall the €855 million obtained for the 2007-13 budget period and how this was promised to revamp our economy. Nothing was said then about what were our dues, our EU membership fee, for that same period, and which we now roughly estimate to take about half that amount back to the EU.

Emphasis is also being made on the fact that we were record spenders with regard to pre-accession and transition facility funding. Agreed. But these were monies spent mostly on civil servants to train abroad (air fares, accommodation and fees) and twinning programmes with EU partner countries that provided, against payment, the training and consultancy on the island. Not so difficult to spend these monies.

The question here to ask is not whether we spent most of the money (mostly in foreign countries) but what benefits did we obtain from them. The various evaluation reports, including those carried out with the participation of the undersigned, might be seen on the web and can be judged on their own merits.

The problem with the 2007-13 Structural and Cohesion Funds is that they entail the planning, approval, building and completion of major projects. Various urban waste water treatment plants, waste recycling plants, incinerators, roads etc. It is an admitted fact that our Administration cannot cope adequately with these projects and, as a result, we are very late on most projects and risk losing funds if not completed in the agreed periods. So much so that, even according to the table provided by the EU Ambassador himself, in 2008 Malta finished a net gainer from the EU by some €5 million. Big deal!

To try to drag the Commission to underline that Malta need not be a net contributor is babyish at best. Of course, we know that these monies are due to us and perhaps they might not be lost to us. But can you imagine if a patient is given only half the medicinal dose due to him/her on two consecutive days in the comfort that the medicine will be alright in the fridge? Malta today is that patient. It needs its planned investment in full today.

Using half the amount over two consecutive years is no help to the economy. The EU has even allowed us to dip into the 2010 budget to help ride the recession. Keeping the funds for the future will not do us any good.