What had started out with no insignificant amount of hype and hyperbole ends with something of a fizzle today as Malta's term of office in which it held the Presidency of the European Union officially draws to an end, and the baton is handed to Estonia.
It will now be 13 odd years before Malta is once again called to the helm of the EU.
This Presidency had started out with such high hopes, such promise. Malta, the government said, would be placed at the heart of the European Union; it would push its national agenda to the forefront of the European discussion. It would reunite a fragmenting bloc in the wake of Brexit, it would see untold numbers of journalists flocking to Malta and it would put miniscule Malta on the EU map more than ever before.
We had the glamorous opening ceremonies attended by the European Union's top brass, and the Prime Minister made all those publicised visits to our fellow EU member states to discuss Malta's January-July agenda for Europe.
Such matters are commonplace whenever the next country takes over the EU Presidency. Perhaps the Maltese government had contracted a case of stars in its eyes, having been impressed by all the attention it was getting in the lead up to its stint at the EU's helm. Or perhaps the government had simply suffered a case of the positivity and optimism that it continually seeks to exude.
Whatever the case, it falsely advertised much of what Malta's EU Presidency, or any EU Presidency for that matter, is all about.
In recent days, news releases have been replete with the successes of Malta's term, and they are bound to increase in the coming days. On Tuesday, there will be a European Parliament review of the Maltese Presidency with the Prime Minister in attendance, during which Malta's achievements will undoubtedly come in for a considerable amount of praise. And there have been several achievements, mostly of a bureaucratic nature, of which there is little need to go into detail at this juncture.
The fact that Malta has apparently achieved so much, despite having gone through a gruelling electoral campaign right in the middle of its term, shows that in reality the Presidency was either masterfully handled by the technocrats and bureaucrats who do the real work, or that it was not all that much to have been so excited about in the first place. The answer is most likely that it was a case of a little of both.
Malta's stint at the helm of the European Union had been from the outset destined for trouble given the long and enduring shadow that the Panama Papers has cast over it, but in reality, no major spanners were thrown in the works and everything proceeded smoothly, at least on the surface.
Malta was continually criticised by European politicians and press alike over the multiple corruption allegations that it faced but its efficacy at the helm of the EU, for what it is worth, was not considerably hindered.
Did Malta's EU Presidency live up to the hype? No. But then again there was no need for so much hype to have been created in the first place.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2st9t5d
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