Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1481355
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 OCTOBER 2022 8 INTERVIEW 'We are being proven right, across the The Nationalist Party has been given a lot to be triumphant about, of late. Finance Minis- ter Clyde Caruana has admitted that his government's econom- ic model is 'flawed' - prompting a 'We told you so!' response from the PN – and just yester- day, the Energy Ministry has just announced plans for a 'new offshore windfarm'… of the kind that former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had suggested, way back in 2006. Do you feel, then, that your party is being proven right on all those sec- tors (including energy, which is what arguably lost it both the 2008 and 2013 elections)? I think that we're being proven right, across the board: start- ing with the economic model, which is something we've been talking about for the past 10 years. In one of the most dense- ly-populated countries in the world, it was madness to base our economic growth on sim- ply increasing the workforce, by expanding the population. This has resulted in precarity; cheap labour; increased cost of living; inflationary pressure on property and rental prices; not to mention the impact on the environment, and the country's infrastructure. And the energy sector fits in with all that. When we talk about the rising cost of living, we tend to blame it on things like the international energy crisis, and the war in Ukraine. Now: these certainly have an effect, no doubt about it. But when you compare Malta with other Euro- pean countries, [a different pic- ture emerges]. The government likes to boast, for instance, that we have the 'lowest inflation rate in the EU'. In July/August, our inflation was around '7.something' per cent; while the EU average was around '9.something'. But that's not a like-with-like comparison; be- cause while the Maltese govern- ment was subsidising local ener- gy-prices… there were no such subsidies in other EU countries. So the major component of in- flation, in those other countries, was energy. In Malta, however, energy is NOT a component, be- cause it's being subsidised. The real figure we should be looking at, then, is the one Finance Minister Clyde Caruana himself mentioned in his presentation two weeks ago: that if there were no energy subsidies, our inflation would be higher than 20%. And this means that – once the energy crisis starts subsiding - the rest of Europe will see its inflation rates start to go down. Malta, on the other hand, will not. Because the major compo- nent of inflation, over here, is not energy: it's the economic model chosen by the government. It's the same with renewable energy, by the way. In 2006, there was a plan for an offshore windfarm: and there were al- ready nine consortia lining up to invest in it. So it was feasible: financially, at least… Really? I'm not so sure; but car- ry on… … all I was going to say is that, when Labour came into power in 2013: they scrapped the off- shore windfarm plan complete- ly, because they wanted Electro- gas. And in 2015, they actually removed it from the Renewable Energy Plan altogether. They stated, in black-on-white, that wind would NOT be a compo- nent, of Malta's policy to reach its renewable energy targets, by 2050. And in the same year, they bought a windfarm in Montene- gro… … and now, 10 years later, we're going back to where we started, with offshore windfarms: like we stated in our long-term ener- gy plan, last year. Had we done this 10 years ago, on the other hand: by now, we would have a 100-megawatt windfarm, sup- plying roughly 20% of our energy capacity; and saving us a packet of money [balla flus] that is now being spent on subsidies; not to mention all the 'green jobs' that would have been created… This is what I had those earlier doubts about, though. You're talking about the PN's 2006 off- shore windfarm idea as though it was guaranteed to work. Yet in the seven years between 2006 and 2013, the Nationalist government never managed to implement it; and as I recall, the main reason was that the 'deep-sea' technology favoured at the time, had yet to be prop- erly tested… If I remember correctly, the main concern was about the [Yelkouan] shearwater, and the effect it would have on local breeding colonies. But I don't remember the precise details. Even so, however, there were mitigation measures that could have been taken; and the tech- nology has evolved a lot since then… OK, but what I meant was: it's very easy for the Nationalist Party to tell Labour: 'I told you so', when it comes to renewa- ble energy. But for all the time it spent in government, the PN never actually implemented a single large-scale renewable project of its own. All it ever did was introduce a few fis- cal incentives for photovoltaic panels. So how can it be taken seriously, in this sector? I wouldn't say 'nothing was done': the offshore windfarm plans were moving forward. By 2010, the impact assessment report had been submitted; and many of the pre-implementa- tion stages were ready. So had we won the 2013 election, that windfarm would already be in place by now. And even many of the [energy projects] inaugurat- ed by Labour, had their origins before 2013. The interconnec- tor, for instance… But that's not exactly a 're- newable source of energy', is it? On that subject, however: the war in Ukraine has also exposed just how dangerous it can be, to rely on a European grid that is largely dependent on gas supplied by potentially hostile countries. (Germany, for instance, has had to scuttle its own 'interconnector' with Russia). Isn't it unwise, then, to bank so heavily on a pipeline to mainland Europe, for gas? Well, you have to look at the situation as it stands today. Right now, for our importation of gas we depend exclusively on the agreement we have with SO- CAR. I would say that a pipeline to Europe ensures a better se- curity of supply; because there's A series of government U-turns and mishaps appears to have boosted the Nationalist Party's morale. But as its former executive president MARK ANTHONY SAMMUT warns: the PN's greatest obstacle is the public perception that it 'cannot ever become a party in government' Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt