Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1501361
OPINION 12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 14 JUNE 2023 A while back, I chanced upon a Youtube documentary about the history of Mississippi Delta Blues. Sadly, I can't remember the actual title (and it doesn't help much that there are around 50 million videos on Youtube, all on the same top- ic)... so I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it, as I recre- ate a scene that was narrated in the video by (if memory serves me correctly) Keith Richards. It happened in London, around 1965: when The Rolling Stones invited a number of living Blues Legends - as yet unheard-of, in the the UK - to perform live on British television, and in various venues across the country. Among those unknown artists were the likes of Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, John Lee Hook- er, and Little Walter Jacobs... and these performances attracted con- siderable interest among a wider British public that, for the most part, had never actually heard 'The Blues' before. They also evidently piqued the interest of musicians, composers, musical theorists, journalists, crit- ics, and – in a nutshell – British musical academia, in general. So much so, that the press conferenc- es were almost as well-attended as the concerts themselves: and those Mississippi Delta Bluesmen soon found themselves bewildered by all sorts of questions about the purely 'theoretical' elements of their own music. Keith Richards recalls a specif- ic instance when one of them – I believe it was Little Walter – was asked the following question (which I reproduce here from memory): "You call it '12-Bar Blues'... but I've been counting, and sometimes there are 12 bars; sometimes 11; sometimes 13; and every so often there'll be 15, or even more. So: how many bars SHOULD there be, in a 12-Bar Blues Shuffle?" To which Little Walter drily replied: "As many as I goddamn WANT there to be, that's how many! Next question!" Now: at the time of watching, I made a mental note to keep that little incident in mind. Partly be- cause – then as now – I found it 'funny as hell'; but also because I feel it illustrates a certain 'truism', about the way human beings are generally wired up. Let's face it: there are people in the world who (like the journalist who asked that question) feel the need for all things to be proper- ly 'regulated', and 'regimented'; and indeed, they may feel up- set – possibly, even 'threatened' - when things do not conform to their 'structured, orderly' expecta- tions... Then, on the other hand, you have people like Little Walter – and pretty much all artists, every- where – who do not feel even re- motely constrained by any such 'regimentation', at all (and who, conversely, would feel equal- ly threatened by the thought of losing their own autonomy, to a bunch of 'goddamn rules-and-reg- ulations'...) With hindsight, however, I re- alise there is a third reason why I singled it out for memory-da- tabase storage. It also reminds me of the way that the European Commission tends to go about its own business of drawing up 'rules and regulations' (or – to stick to the same musical motif – how it to always seems to just 'make up the words and music, as it goes along'...) In fact, you could almost replace Little Walter with Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen - and shift the topic of discussion from 'Mississippi Delta Blues', to 'The European Commission's rules on State Aid' - and the press conference would probably unfold exactly the same way, down to the last detail. For instance: "Madame Presi- dent: the European Union is sup- posed to have rules against State Aid – in fact, the Commission has consistently denied Malta per- mission to subsidise its national airline, for years now - yet the Eu- ropean Commission has only just approved a number of financial 'aid-packages' (all to be financed by the European tax-payer) that will end up benefiting only certain private companies involved in the micro-electronics sector. Would you care to explain this contra- diction, please? What are the EU's precise rules about State Aid? And who SHOULD – or should NOT – benefit from government subsi- dies, anyway: the private, or public sector?' Ursula von Der Leyen's answer? Well: I can't tell you with any precision, to be honest (because – somewhat strangely - no Euro- pean journalist has ever seen fit to actually ask her that question, before...) ... but based on the reality of what's actually happening around us, right now: I can easily 'fill in those blanks', myself. "What are the EU's precise State Aid regulations, you ask? Well, they're... whatever I WANT them to be, at any given moment: that's what they are! Same goes for who ends up actually benefiting from State subsidies, or not. I decide that myself, on the basis of what I WANT... or DON'T WANT. Sim- ple as that, really. Next question!" Now: just in case you think that I, too, might be 'making up the words and music, as I go along'... here are a few of the actions (which, as I'm sure you all know, 'speak louder than words') that the European Commission has actu- ally taken, over the years, precisely on the subject of 'State Aid'. Let's start with the obvious. Air Malta. You will hardly need re- minding that every government we've ever had, since joining the EU in 2004 (and arguably even earlier, when we were still in 'ne- gotiation' phase) has tried, in one way or another, to convince the European Commission to permit a single, one-off, sorely-needed 'cash-injection', into our belea- guered national airline. And from Tonio Fenech (i.e., mid-2000s) onwards: every single Maltese finance minister has al- ways used the same argument to justify that request. At the risk of repeating it for the zillionth time: it was that an airline like Air Malta fulfils a vital, invaluable national/ strategic function, that no other private airline can possibly to ex- pected to provide; and which, by definition, should automatically override all other, purely 'com- mercial' objections. Meanwhile: just to illustrate the sort of service we're actually talk- ing about, here... allow me to re- mind you, once again, that when several Maltese civilians found themselves trapped at Tripoli airport, during the post-Gaddafi uprisings of 2010 – there was only one company which put its own personnel at risk, by actually flying into Libya, and returning with all those people safely on board. (And I'll give you all a hint: it wasn't ex- actly 'ST Micro-electronics', was it now?) And yet: what was the Europe- an Commission's actual answer, to all those Malta governments' requests for such a small - and entirely warranted - exemption to State Aid regulations? This time, I can actually quote it for you, verbatim. They said: "NO! NON! NÃO! NEIN! NIET! NEJ! LE! OCHI...!' Basically, they said a flat 'NO', in all 27 of the European Union's of- ficial languages (28, including Eng- lish). And oh, look: as a result, Air Malta has already been giving its marching orders... to be replaced, next October, by a new 'national airline', which we are told will be 'managed along the lines of a pri- vate, commercial company'... So, um... what I can say? Let's just hope that no other Maltese civil- ians ever find themselves 'trapped', under similar conditions, while on holiday in future. Because from now on: those people are going to have to rely on the equivalent of 'Ryanair', to come flying in to their rescue; and – no offence, or any- thing – I just don't see that ever happening in practice, myself. But never mind all that, for now: because when one, single Maltese government agency (Malta Enter- prise) submitted an almost identi- cal request to the same European Commission, recently: only this time, asking for permission to sub- sidise an entirely private company – ST Microelectronics, no less! – through 'cash-injections funded by the European tax-payer'... Honestly, you're probably going to think I'm making this part up, too. So instead of continuing that sentence, I'll just quote from yes- terday's report: "STMicroelectronics Malta will receive financial backing from the Maltese government to upgrade its production lines as part of an EU initiative to boost microchip production in the bloc. [...] Ap- proval for the public investment arrived on Thursday when the European Commission approved up to €8.1 billion [!!!] in state aid packages proposed by 14 member states." In other words: suddenly, the European Commission's answer to 'requests for State Aid exemp- tions' went from: "NO! NON! NÃO! NEIN! NIET!, etc.", to: "YES! OUI! SI! JAVOL! YESSIR- REE! WATEVA-YUSEJ...!" ... even if the same article goes on to describe the lucky bene- ficiary, of all this newfound 'EU taxpayer generosity' – and which, by the way, will also benefit from an as-yet unquantified amount of funding, directly from the Maltese government ( i.e., US!) – as: "[...] one of the largest private sector employers in the manufac- turing sector. The company em- ploys more than 1,800 people and exports more than €700 million every year..." Got that, folks? So the Commis- sion automatically said 'Yes', to our tax-money being squandered on subsidies for Malta's single largest, and most successful, private com- mercial enterpise (despite the fact that it very evidently doesn't even NEED any such government bail- out, in the first place)... ... yet, despite having already al- located the not-insignifcant sum of €8.1 BILLION [!!!], to that pur- pose: the same European Com- mission somehow always object- ed to Malta's requests to spend a much smaller amount of taxpay- er's money – around €55 million, as I recall - on bailing out what we all agree is an absolutely indispen- sable national asset, for the entire country... ... not to mention, an asset that one would actually benefit ALL the Maltese people, for a change: and not just those 1,800 'ST Mi- croelectronics' employees (or, even worse, that company's annu- al turnover...) Go figure... Europe's State Aid rules: 'No, for Air Malta; YES, for STMicroelectronics!' Raphael Vassallo