Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/290775
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 6 APRIL 2014 26 Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Air Malta has been, by any calculation, a success story. It was traditionally self- financing without the need to resort to Government subsidy.This success risks fading into nothing unless urgent action is taken. It is time for both management and the unions to carry on meeting and ironing out a deal which guarantees the long time survival of this airline, which is a crucial cog in the local tourist infrastructure. The agreement must be an arrangement that recognises past commercial mistakes and excessive benefits. It must also ref lect today's realities. Air Malta today, post 9/11, is operating under a totally new reality. All airlines, with the exception of Air Malta, immediately made their operations leaner, fully cognisant that this was necessary in view of the envisaged drop in traveling numbers as a result of the September 11 tragedy. Accordingly and swiftly, the present Minister with responsibility for Air Malta took the bull by the horns, recognised what immediately needed to be done and set about meeting the four different unions represented at Air Malta with the intention of agreeing to a corporate rescue plan for the airline. The ministerial battle cry is change or die. The message is clear - many a work practice which were introduced outside the collective agreement and by a management team which believed that past profits were guaranteed to carry on, need to be trimmed or done away with completely. Intelligently, this cost cutting was to be done across the board, affecting all ranks from the uppermost echelons of the company including the salary of the chairman to the least ranking down the corporate ladder. This is leadership by example. This exemplary behaviour needs however to have further credibility, to recognise and acknowledge that many of the bad business decisions and the tendency to overspend took place during the administration of this Government, of which the present Minister was also a member of and for which he too must carry a collective sense of responsibility. We take note of Dr Austin Gatt's political boldness to criticise past financial shortcomings, especially the lack of foresight to fully recognise the turbulent effects of September the eleventh and the all too detached attitude of the former minister Josef Bonnici from not only the day to day operation but also the broader performance of the company. We fear that the previous minister may have been misled by the previous chairman or perhaps their apparent friendship led to his turning the Nelson's eye to the operation. The present Government must look into the dire effects on the financial stability of the company the Avro purchases and the setting up of the Azzura Air operation had. Were these decisions dictated by the vision for creating a hub concept that did not materialise? If so, in the normal course of business operations, was it a business decision gone sour? Or was it a question of an ill thought out decision that put a further strain on the company's operations? Only an independent inquiry can shed further light on this. We advise the Minister to set this up in accordance with Government's professed belief in the value of corporate accountability and transparency. We would equally urge the unions to accept the cost cutting being proposed. It is not only necessary but also the only way to guarantee the jobs of their members. If this rescue plan is not implemented, the airline will be grounded within the next two years. This is certainly a situation we do not want to see happening. Let common sense prevail EDITORIAL - April 4 2004 The principle of popular majority The inauguration of the presidency of Dr Coleiro Preca on Friday 4 April 2014, a few days after celebrat- ing the 35th anniversary of Freedom Day, has given occasion for a reshuf- fle of Joseph Muscat's Cabinet of Ministers and Parliamentary Secre- taries, the first such Cabinet of this young Prime Minister who assumed office after a historic Labour Party victory in March 2013. This Cabinet reshuffle, apart from Dr Coleiro Preca, includes the res- ignations of the Minister for Health Dr Godfrey Farrugia and of the Parliamentary Secretary Dr Franco Mercieca, who were both newly ap- pointed last year and of the Labour veteran Karmenu Vella, Minister for Tourism, who will now be nominat- ed for the position of Commissioner in the College of Commissioners of the EU. The departure of Mr Vella from Cabinet is of especial symbolic sig- nificance, since he is the last of the close collaborators of Dom Mintoff to leave the front-line of Maltese politics and signals the closure of the post-independence epoch, which in effect came to a close 10 years ago when Malta joined the EU in May 2004. Taking into consideration the scholarship available today, I am of the opinion that the post-colonialist era – the 40 years after independ- ence, between 1964 and 2004 – may best be described as "populist" in political jargon. In this period, Maltese governments, although en- joying full sovereign rights as from September 1964, had to find their way and re-order the institutional infrastructure left behind by the colonising power. The Maltese par- liaments of this period had to create the Republic and to dismantle the foreign military base, among other necessary reforms, for the country to have viable political institutions. These historic changes however required a justifying cause, as the overriding principle of national unity could no longer be found in military force or Church influence, options available under foreign rule. This justifying overriding principle was found to be the popular major- ity rule and was inserted in our Constitution in 1987. This was em- ployed in 2003 to enable the country to decide, by means of a referendum and general election, on its relations with the European Union, allowing Malta to partake of a global vision. Mario Mifsud Hamrun An unfair assessment of Brussels sprouts Some deem Brussels sprouts too sour and stinky. They are often ticked off the menu just because of that. Yet, they are extremely healthy and contain glucosinolate sinigrin, a cancer-preventing substance. In life, as in politics, it is way too easy to rely on perceptions. In most cases we get by. You don't have to be a professional nutritionist to pick the ingredients to cook after a day's work. Some of our choices, however, might have a different kind of impact. Not necessarily immediate or direct, but still very strong. Elections are a case in point. Last week, the editor of this news- paper asked whether we need a Euro- pean Parliament at all. "It does allow six Maltese MEPs to get handsomely remunerated… but apart from that, it achieves next to nothing", he said. The question was put in the context of a series of comments on that 'handsome' remuneration of MEPs riding on the infamous 'gravy train', doing nothing of substance. This picture of the European Parliament is unfair and incorrect. The European Parliament is the democratic powerhouse of Europe. It has gradually increased its leverage on EU decision-making to achieve full legislative power in the EU on a par with the Council of Ministers. It has adopted innumerable citizen- centric legislation in different areas: your MCAST or University certifi- cate is today recognised abroad; you can undergo an operation anywhere in the EU when there are reason- able conditions to do so; common tendering rules and better access to public procurement for businesses; simpler accounting rules for smaller companies; free-to-air broadcasting of major events; protection when shopping online. From the micro to the macro, we are all affected to some extent. We just do not relate certain ben- efits to their real source. In all these cases and in hundreds more, the de- cisions of the MEPs over the last leg- islature have ensured that the Union acts where it can add value in areas where its member countries cannot achieve certain objectives on their own. Hence more coordinated laws to ensure not only healthy markets, but also practical and concrete standards like safer toys for children, cleaner air, clearer labelling to provide better information ot the consumer, and myriad other facets of quality of life that we take for granted. Saying that the European Parlia- ment achieves next to nothing neglects countless privileges that we enjoy as European citizens. True, most of these privileges may be invis- ible to most of us, just as glucosi- nolate sinigrin goes unnoticed in Brussels sprouts. The very term 'gravy train' was coined as a cheap populist battlecry of sceptics that are themselves deriv- ing benefit from the Brussels machin- ery. MEPs are indeed the sole direct representatives of the people in the European project. They are part of the structure together with national governments, with whom they share legislative power in the EU. Another over-used adage is that 'Brussels' (which in reality com- prises also our own government and politicians) is detached from the citizen. You just need to look at 'national' news headlines to see that most of what we debate here has an EU dimension that is applied locally. Cleaner energy, solar panels, public finances, a more efficient justice system, working conditions, you name it. Europe has never been closer than this to the Maltese citizen. There are of course areas where solutions are still far off and where the EU has underperformed or even been absent. Choosing our representatives should also be about giving a direction to this ongoing process. In this sense the European Parliament should be seen as a means, not an end in itself. To those who dismiss Brussels as a dull place, going once more by the cliché, I would suggest taking a stroll around Parc George Henri and, once you are there, stop for ice cream at the Capoue. Those who fed you the stereotype have probably never left the corridors of the institutions and are not to be trusted for eye-witness advice. And by the way, Brussels sprouts are delicious when roasted and will stink your kitchen only if overcooked. Peter Agius Head of the European Parliamet Office in Malta The renegade Pope The local media recently published several write-ups on Pope Francis to mark the first anniversary of his pontificate. None of them mentioned his most controversial statements, most of which sent shock waves among the Catholic faithful. In an interview with Civilta Cattolica, Pope Francis said that the Church had locked itself up in "small things, in small-minded rules", and that the Church should not be "obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed mul- titude of doctrines to be imposed insistently." Such words, coming from the Pope, are indeed unprecedented. If a non-Catholic had used these words, he would have been accused of being disrespectful towards the Catholic Church. In an interview with La Repub- blica, Francis observed that too many Popes in the Church's long history had been "narcissists" who let themselves by flattered by "courtier" aides in the Curia. During a meeting with superiors of religious orders, the Pope said that men studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood should be properly trained or the Church could risk "creating little mon- sters" more concerned with their careers than with serving people. Catholics were not flattered when the Francis told them: "Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do is undermining the Church's cred- ibility." Nor were they pleased to hear the Pope acknowledging "the existence of a gay lobby and a stream of corruption in the Vatican". John Guillaumier St Julian's