MALTA STAR.com

UNDER GONZI: Malta slips to the very last place of the European league


Published by Malta Star.com, 5 March 2008

The end of Lawrence Gonzi’s legislature was marked with Malta slipping to the very last place in the European league of employment, competitiveness, innovation and research & development.

In the latest report, titled “The Lisbon Scoreboard VIII”, published this week, which is based on a comparison of the 27 EU member states’ performances in 2007 in key areas under the Lisbon strategy, Malta slipped to 27th as Poland gained one place. Malta was 26th in Europe in 2006, while Poland trailing behind. Malta is also behind Romania and Bulgaria, which only joined the EU in 2007.

This latest worrying sign of Malta losing out on competitiveness and competition with EU member states marks the end of Gonzi’s campaign which was based on spin and lies, and boasting on how Malta “has become a better country.”

Unfortunately all indications and statistics in Europe indicate completely the opposite.

The report names Malta, along with Italy, Greece, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria among the “villains” of the reform agenda for scoring poorly in most priority areas. As can be seen from the following score board Malta is last in the list.

The key elements of the Lisbon targets are: Innovation, liberalisation, enterprise, employment and social inclusion, and sustainable development and the environment.

Malta scores poorly on every indicator. Among the areas in which Malta scored dismally low are the much vaunted ICT, employment and the environment. These were among Gonzi’s top trump cards throughout the 2008 election campaign which will come to an end on Thursday.

Under Gonzi, Malta has also the largest number of infringements, a total of 20, among new member states and is second only to Poland and at par with Cyprus.

The scorecard also rates the spread on new technologies in a member state, ‘Information Society’. The increase of internet access for households, schools and public services, and also the promotion of new technologies, such as broadband internet. Even here, Malta scores dismally.

Malta is also far from reaching the Lisbon Target in R&D which is set at 3 per cent of the GDP by 2010.

While the years 2006 and 2007 were the best years in Europe’s job markets since the launch of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000, Malta, even in this field fell behind. The EU economies created around 4 million jobs in 2006 alone, and probably another 3.5 million in 2007. Average unemployment across the EU-27 dropped to 7 per cent in the course of 2007, it lowest rate since the 1980s.

However, Malta’s unsustainable economic growth rates, accounted for much of the employment creation.

The scoreboard is created by the Centre for European Reform (CER), which is a think-tank devoted to improving the quality of the debate on the European Union. It is a forum for people with ideas from Britain and across the continent to discuss the many political, economic and social challenges facing Europe.