Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1393937
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 JULY 2021 INTERVIEW now, the Commission president is essentially selected by 'back- room deals'. That, we strongly disagree with. We believe that the prima- ry legislative initiative should really rest with the European Parliament – which is elected by the public - and not with the Commission. So to give you an idea of the sort of Europe we at Volt are trying to achieve: we want to have a President of the European Union elected by the public. But it would be a cere- monial role, compared to how it is now… Yet at the same time, your national policy platform in- cludes a 'European solution' to (among other things) migra- tion. How do you propose to achieve that, where all efforts have failed in 15 years of EU membership? Well, we aim to push for that by being vocal about the need for a solution, throughout the European Union: by having presence in every European country – at national, local and European level – so that we can push through our ideas and pol- icies more effectively. In a sense, this is already hap- pening. With specific reference to migration: we are active at European Parliament level, where our MEP [Damian Boe- selager] has collaborated with the Greens on a programme called 'Europe Welcomes'. The programme aims to en- courage localities, at municipal levels, to voluntarily take in refugees, and show their com- mitment to helping others. And already, there have been hun- dreds of responses from across Europe. This is to demonstrate that there is, in fact, solidarity for this kind of solution. At municipal level, perhaps. But so far – as you yourself confirmed - little solidarity has been forthcoming from oth- er member states. And in any case: the programme you de- scribe is 'voluntary': leaving us more or less in the same situ- ation (i.e., relying on bi-lateral agreements with other coun- tries). What are you proposing that is in any way different, or innovative? The programme I mentioned was just an example, to show of how it is possible to reach this kind of agreement. But our long-term proposals are to have an actual redistributive system in place: whereby refugees com- ing to the EU would be redis- tributed, based on such factors as a member state's population density, wealth, unemployment, and so on… This is, in fact, partly what we mean by 'fixing the EU'. At pres- ent, the current set-up doesn't allow the EU to enact that kind of policy in the first place... This, presumably, is also why Volt is such an openly 'feder- alist party': arguing in favour of the EU becoming a single country, with member states (presumably) devolving into semi-autonomous regions. But how would that impact such a small, peripheral state such as Malta? What sort of future would this country even have, as a tiny enclave within a fed- eralised Europe? At this stage, we are still work- ing on what the federalised structure would look like. It's not easy, or clear-cut: it will take some time to come up with something that is ideal. But along the way, we want to ensure that there is a strong lo- cal participation of citizens; and that there are ways for citizens to actually participate, at their local, regional and national lev- els. But while it is still too early to say what the final structure would be… the federalisation of Europe, as a whole, does not mean 'taking autonomy away from member states'. It would change how those countries operate, at certain levels… but it is not as though they would lose their autonomous deci- sion-making powers. If look at Germany, for in- stance – which is, in itself, a Federal Republic – there is still a fair amount of autonomy, within each federalised state... Fair enough, but already there are certain concerns about Eu- ropean integration. Like the drive towards tax harmonisa- tion, for instance. Critics – in- cluding the Chamber of Com- merce, and both main political parties – argue that tax sover- eignty is the only way to coun- terbalance the disadvantages of trying to attract foreign in- vestment to such a peripheral country. Why, then, does Volt agree with tax harmonisation? Yes, Volt is in favour of a form of tax harmonisation… but we are also aware that it's not something you can implement, without looking at the conse- quences. We have to be very careful as to how this is intro- duced, as it can impact small countries such as Malta: and also other countries, like the Netherlands and Ireland: which also use their own tax incen- tives to attract business... So there has to be a lot of re- search on how it can be intro- duced; but we do need to intro- duce it eventually… But that was the point of my question. Why is tax harmoni- sation so necessary in the first place? Doesn't it just protect larger countries, by penalising smaller countries that are try- ing to compete with them eco- nomically? The way we see it in the Eu- ropean Union, it's not about 'big countries versus small'; it's more about the amount of tax revenue collected within the EU, which can then be used for services to help citizens. The way it is at the moment, there is less tax collected… so there will be less in the way of services provided… But in Malta, it's the other way round. Our tax incentives (whatever their other flaws) have helped make this coun- try economically viable… why should we be forced to relin- quish our only competitive ad- vantage? But we want to see this from the perspective of the EU as a whole: and not only from the perspective of each individual member state. Obviously, this is not something we can intro- duce from one day to the next: because, in the present set-up, it will have this impact on smaller countries. But if we had a more unified system of tax redistribution, operating across the EU as a whole… and if companies were taxed at a higher rate… there would be more tax revenue to invest in services for the public, across the entire Union. Besides: even the global drive for tax harmonisation, in itself, is not proposing a 'flat rate' for all industries, across the board. So we need to find an optimal solution: which, admittedly, we don't have yet…