Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1260266
8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 17 JUNE 2020 NEWS SCOOTER 001 SHARING THE PRESENT, SO WE CAN BUILD A BETTER FUTURE. One app. Over 450 shared vehicles. Pay per minute, per hour or per day. goto.com.mt/download * Rate per minute for Scooter trips on the GoTo Business Plan. Terms and Conditions apply. €1.50 PAGE 2 PAGE 5 Silvio Schembri apologises for 'unfortunate' foreign workers comments Banking customers offered home loan moratorium due to Covid-19 THURSDAY 19 MARCH 2020 • ISSUE 50 WWW.BUSINESSTODAY.COM.MT DAVID HUDSON A rescue package worth €1.8 bil- lion has been unveiled to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on the economy. PAGE 3 PAGE 2 Editorial PAGE 9 RIDING OUT THE STORM AND SAVING JOBS Coronavirus Government announces €1.8b rescue package to mitigate crisis Robert Abela BOV registers pre-tax profit of €89.2m • Government to pay companies €350 per employee on quarantine leave • Businesses ordered to shut down temporarily, will receive two days of assistance per week per employee Id-dinja dieħla f'riċessjoni? U Malta? www.illum.com.mt ARA PAĠNI 12 u 13 €1.25 IL-ĦADD 22 TA' MARZU 2020 • NRU 701 'Il-Gvern huwa rrassenjat li se nitilfu x-xogħol. Mentri aħna rridu nsalvawh' 'ROBERT GĦINNA QABEL IKUN TARD WISQ' Il-GWU, l-MHRA, il-GRTU, il-FATTA u l-UĦM mal-ILLUM iwissu li jekk il-Gvern mhux se jħabbar miżuri ġodda se jibdew jingħalqu n-negozji u jintilfu l-impjiegi, speċjalment fit-turiżmu, fir-ristoranti u d-divertiment! ARA PAĠNI 4 u 5 PAĠNI 10 u 11 SUNDAY • 22 MARCH 2020 • ISSUE 1064 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.95 maltatoday This won't work, Robert EDITORIAL MT2 ROBERT Abela's package does not go far enough and will not work. Malta has entered a war which has destabilised the economy and all its workers. Abela cannot be scared of spending and rack- ing up the necessary government debt needed for a national stim- ulus now: the risks of not acting will be greater than what lies ahead in the next months. He must alleviate economic hard- ship during the epidemic to pre- vent lasting damage to the econ- omy by stopping this recession from turning into the next Great Depression. What Malta needs is a form of universal credit for all, to keep aggregate demand up and so that idle workers at home can return straight to work at the end of the crisis and restore the supply chain. STAY IN, STAY SAFE, WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/COVID19 Our appeal is simple: Maltese businesses must be sustained by keeping workers in a job with a social insurance that sustains their wages CLAUDIO GRECH 'We cannot allow Maltese businesses to fail. We would be failing society' INTERVIEW MT2 Never before has your support of free and independent journalism been so crucial Support us with a subscription or a donation maltatoday.com.mt/maltatodaydigitaledition MATTHEW VELLA PROPOSED European rules on trucking will have an adverse effect on Maltese businesses due to an inevitable increase in freight costs, Express Trail- ers CEO Franco Azzopardi has warned. The EU Mobility Package adopted by the European Coun- cil on 7 April 2020 and approved by European Parliament on 8 June will see a major reform of the EU road transport sector that includes new rules claimed to improve drivers' working con- ditions, to regulate governing ac- cess to the road haulage market and also to regulate maximum work and minimum rest times for drivers. Franco Azzopardi said the EU mobility package will bring ma- jor disruption to its operations and costs, which, "needless to say will be passed on to the im- porter and exporter." "Every 8 weeks, we will have to bring our trucks back to Malta for a week and then re- turned back to the continent. This means that every truck will be laying idle for six and a half weeks every year. To make good for this and to ensure our steady service, for every eight trucks we have on the continent, we will need to acquire another truck just to fill the gap of the dead time of the fleet. Why should we be forced to invest say, €500,000 to acquire five new trucks and incur depreciation and amorti- sation without any return on in- vestment?" Azzopardi said the carriage of goods was an artery of Malta's survival because all goods con- sumed on the island is imported. "The spillover effect on peo- ple's lives will be price hikes on all imported and exported prod- ucts due to this increase in freight costs meaning a restraint and choke on any e-commerce initia- tive on the part of the retailer due to becoming uncompetitive on freight," Azzopardi said. "I am extremely sad, disap- pointed and outright angry at all this. My expectation was that the EU should not even have come up with such discriminatory ini- tiatives and rules, especially now in these already very delicate economic times," he added. "From where we stand this is a capriciously designed rule, cam- ouflaged under an environmen- tal excuse which in my view is complete nonsense. Miles will still have to covered to carry cargo from exporter to import- er. Difference is that now those miles will cost much more due to the amortisation of the cost of unproductive capital tied up the additional trucks that will give us no miles." Azzopardi said the new rules are claimed to supposedly im- prove working and social condi- tions for drivers and contribute to road safety. "Truckers are now going to be prohibited from doing their weekly rest period of 45 hours in the truck which is their second home. Why impose such a prohibition?" Azzopardi said the EU wants transport companies to also send their drivers home every 4 weeks. He said truckers "find solace and pride in their truck cabin which they will always prefer to any hotel for just the weekend, every week they are on duty." "And I can vouch for this hav- ing personally done a tour with a trucker which enlightened me to understand how truckers think and feel. The EU rule could have just given the right to the truck- ers to demand such a condition, not impose it on them and us. "This is unsustainable, our truckers work on the road out of their own free will, are all well paid and should be free to work the length of tour they want. No authority should interfere unless the truckers are being exploited or unless there is scientifically proven health hazard." Azzopardi suggested that the rules could be an orchestration by more influential countries to protect their companies from more competitive companies doing trucking operations on mainland Europe. "I really can see no other reason for it having been put forward at EU level," Azzopardi said. Azzopardi referred to the rule of 'cabotage' which defines that in EU countries, trucking com- panies cannot do more than 3 operations in an EU country, within 7 days, and now without getting out of that country and 'cooling off' for 4 days. "I feel this rule goes head-on against the EU principles of free movement and in Malta's case, it is paralysing. Malta's size and that of its businesses make it near impossible to have less than three stops or pick-up points from a country. We already struggle to operate sustainably. What we do is, by specialising in 'groupage', we load and stack trailers as much as possible, with multiple units of cargo go- ing to the same country regions for dropping off at different ad- dresses so as to optimise tour efficiencies." He said the 'cabotage' rule pro- hibits Maltese companies from doing such multiple operations within 7 consecutive days in the same country because of the lim- itation of up to three operations, when they normally complete a whole tour with a multiple of op- erations in just a couple of days. "In my view, this is nothing but protectionism of the territory hauliers and if you had to ask me, goes against the true spirit of the EU, at least the way I un- derstand it to be. "I am not sure whether Mal- tese MEPs together with the transport and economy author- ities fought this EU Mobility Package tooth and nail from the outset. Even if since recently, all the local MEPs whichever creed came out strong and unit- ed, the timing was wrong. To my knowledge, the EU does not function that way. We came out too late." Prices will increase under EU trucking rules, Express CEO warns