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3 NEWS 17.11.2022 According to the Retail Price Index, Malta has witnessed rapid price growth over the first six months of 2022, with prices rising by an average of 5.1 per cent from January to June. The two main components driving the RPI growth rate in the first half of the year are food and housing. Food is contributing 1.9 percentage points while the housing contribution is at 0.9 percentage points. The next highest contributors are transport and communication at 0.6 percentage points, recreation and culture at 0.4 percentage points, and household equipment and household maintenance costs at 0.3 percentage points. retail price index 'The EU has the right to defend itself better on the global stage' A conference organised by the Malta Sustainability Forum on Wednesday highlighted the need for another re- form of the pension system – to en- sure that people have an adequate in- come for their retirement. The conference was the third event organised by the forum, which was set up by APS Bank to highlight its com- mitment to sustainability. The 'Bridging the Pension Gap' con- ference, held at the Dolmen Hotel, focused on pension sustainability and adequacy, which were tackled through a broad spectrum of speakers, includ- ing Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, social partners from both the employ- ers and employees side, and other local experts. A UK speaker explained the British framework which had worked in other countries and which could be viable for Malta. The framework was based on automatic enrolment of em- ployees into a pension scheme, who would be given the possibility to opt out should they so desire. The Pensions Working Group, chaired by David Spiteri Gingell, was set up in June 2004, setting in motion a reform which raised the retirement age and introduced private pensions, among other things. However, by 2021 only 13,672 had taken up private personal pension schemes, and only 1,685 were enrolled in a voluntary oc- cupational pension. To guide the discussion, APS com- missioned a Pensions Engagement Survey, which they intend to establish as an annual healthcheck on a num- ber of key metrics. The survey found that there was little knowledge about voluntary occupational retirement pension schemes and a possible un- willingness to act on the part of em- ployers. Only 3% of employees said that they were enrolled in an occupational pen- sion scheme, around 10% below the potential target threshold. Around 65% of the companies sur- veyed said they thought that con- tributing to an occupational pension would help with recruitment and re- tention of staff – but only 3% actually offered such schemes. Just over half of the companies surveyed that don't currently support occupational pen- sions said they would be interested in setting one up – though not necessar- ily contributing financially themselves to the scheme. Malta Sustainability Forum: Bridging the pension gap FROM PAGE 1 "The EU and its Member States have become in recent years the target of deliberate economic pressure exer- cised by non-EU countries through measures affecting trade and invest- ment. The EU has the right to defend itself better on the global stage when becoming a target of economic intim- idation." In this mandate, the Council seeks an enhanced involvement in the de- cision-making process by conferring implementing powers to itself to de- termine what constitutes economic coercion. The European Commission will re- tain implementing powers in deci- sions on the EU's response measures while ensuring increased involvement of member states in these decisions. Defence of the EU's interest Among the measures that could be applied to the third country as a re- sponse to economic coercion are imposition of trade restrictions, for example in the form of increased cus- toms duties, import or export licences, or restrictions in the field of services, public procurement or foreign direct investment. These measures would be applied without a retroactive charac- ter and respecting the proportionality with regards to the damage caused. The anti-coercion instrument is designed to de-escalate and induce discontinuation of specific coercive measures through dialogue as a first step. Any countermeasures taken by the EU would be applied only as a last resort when there is no other way to address economic intimidation. The European Commission pro- posed this legislation on 8 December 2021, at the request of the Council and the European Parliament. The European Parliament's Com- mittee on International Trade (INTA) adopted amendments to the proposal on 10 October and the plenary con- firmed the Parliament's negotiating mandate on 19 October and requested that negotiations begin 'immediately'. Next steps The regulation now has to be agreed between the Council and the Euro- pean Parliament under the ordinary legislative procedure. Once the reg- ulation is officially adopted by both institutions, it will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Offi- cial Journal of the EU. Jozef Síkela, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic

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