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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2015 24 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. Why beauty matters A disaster called Gozo! Xemxija sunny side no more Antonio Belvedere's crie de coeur on the transferring of the monti open air market to Ordnance Street, a stone's throw away from the new Parliament which Renzo Piano designed, may go unheeded. For this reason I will argue here why beauty matters and what hap- pens to us when we choose to live without it. Belvedere compared this choice of venue for the market so unsuitably close to the recently built Parlia- ment building, to "baking a cake and spitting on it". Here, two ac- tions are brought together to show how incongruous such a decision would be. Why is this happening here? And why are we unable to realize the consequences of such a move? I argue that the lack of beauty in our lives is the cause. Beauty as a value was always important to Western culture and civilization. Debates on what consti- tutes beauty date back to Plato and Classical Greece and the discourse continued with Ficino in Renais- sance Florence all the way to the nineteenth century. Today, beauty in the art world is no longer important and art and architecture have made a culture of ugliness. Malta is no exception to the rule. What has been central to Western art has disappeared and now we are witnessing the result of this in our daily lives. Our environment, our place of work and the way we treat each other are all affected by the ab- sence of beauty in our lives. We have turned our backs on this spiritual need and what is replacing it is ugli- ness and alienation. Is it therefore so surprising that we turn our backs on the work of a great architect who has designed our Parliament building? I believe human beings from all walks of life need beauty in their lives. Without it our lives become barren and uninspiring. If we look at the work of very great artists and architects like Bernini, who was an architect and sculptor, Rembrandt, Titian and contemporary architects like Renzo Piano and Zaha Hadid they understand that human life is full of chaos and suffering but they have a remedy for that which is beauty. The evidence is the result of their art and architecture and the millions who travel to pay hom- age and find spiritual sustenance in great works of art. These very great artists remind us through their work that beauty matters and great art and architecture console us in sorrow and affirm our joy. It is therefore necessary to sit up and take heed of Antonio Belvedere because his is the voice we should all be listening to when it comes to what is best for the parliament as a building and in the long run what is best for us. Why has beauty ceased to be important for artists? Is it that the randomness of modern life can never be redeemed by beauty? The pattern with this impatience for beauty in art started with Marcel Duchamp who exhibited a urinal and called it "Fountain" (1917). His gesture was satirical, however much about satire tends to get misunder- stood, and Duchamp's "Fountain" was interpreted in another way. That anything can be art, like a light going on and off by Martin Creed, (2000), a can of excrement by a Pietro Manzoni, (1961), a pile of bricks by Karl Andre, (1966 ) and more recently Tracy Emin's My Bed (1999) is what replaced beauty. Has art become a gesture like any other, no different from laughing or crying? Therefore, is it surprising that we are unable to distinguish the value of quality architecture and give it its due value? This displacement of beauty from our lives has resulted in indiffer- ence to great architecture in Malta. Many argue and believe that a mammoth intellectual exercise like designing a Parliament in a town like Valletta, is no different from any other activity and should not be given precedence. What effect this will have on our capital city in the long term is anybody's guess. Madeleine Gera Valletta Gozo, especially Victoria, has been a complete disaster for the last 10 months. The works at Savina and It- Tokk squares were supposed to last about from two to three months. 10 months later and the works are far from being finished. Rumour has it that works will not finish till at least next September. Anyone can go to the Savina and It-Tokk areas and you'll see about eight idle machines and maybe two people doing some work. The Cita- del area also is a complete disaster and looks like works there are going to take a very long time. At least 95% of the roads in Gozo are in a terrible state and yet car registrations keep going up. Truth is there is not much going on anywhere in Gozo. The Victoria area is constantly at a gridlock and traffic lights at St Francis Square were installed at the wrong place. In my opinion they should have been installed right across from Tapies Bar. As in most other projects the ones in Victoria are long overdue and over budget! Did the PL learn anything from the mistakes that the PN committed? The answer is no. Not a thing! Every so often the government brings up the Gozo bridge or the Gozo tunnel subject. But only to distract people, taking them for fools. Talk at St Francis square is that the PL is much worse than the PN ever was with regard to Gozo. Imagine trying to build a bridge or a tunnel! It would probably take years and years, considering that the Mgarr to St. Lawrence road is not even finished yet after so many years. The PN's record in Gozo was dis- mal to say the least and it looks like the PL's will be even worse. It seems that the government and the min- istry for transport are in complete hibernation with regard to Gozo. J Buttigieg Xewkija It is undeniable that the proposed high building in Triq is-Simar, Xemxija is being vigorously op- posed, for many valid reasons, by all the residents of this area and by others who have the environment at heart. We are repeatedly told that the will of the people is supreme and that the authorities are there to safeguard the people`s rights. Oth- erwise how can we citizens have faith in the institutions. Well, here we have a situation where the residents are 100% against this development. These are the communities of Triq is-Simar, Triq l-Oqbra Punici, Triq ir-Ridott and the lower part of Triq Raddet ir-Roti, with an estimated popula- tion of around 500 residents who oppose this project, with not a single person being in favour. In view of all this, will the MEPA appeals board take this into consid- eration when it comes to decide on this building permit? As we see it, smiles and hand- shakes are no good to us. This is a matter of life or death because we are no fools or imbeciles. Should this high building ever materialise, Xemxija to us will not be Xemxija, "sunny side", any more and for one thing the value of our property will fall while that of the speculator will go sky high. C. Xuereb, R. Camilleri, A. Brincat Xemxija The Maltese government's quest to ensure the country will be an Objective 1 status recipient of the EU's most generous of funds has only just started as Member States await the start of earnest discussions on the EU's budget for 2007 to 2013. Faced with a potential relegation from the Objective 1 category, the government is presenting a political argument to fight off a statistical quirk that risks losing it some €200 million (Lm87 million) over seven years. However, it is also hoping that a down- ward economic performance in 2003 will save the day by pushing down Malta's GDP as a percentage of the EU average, after provisional EU statistics put Malta's GDP just above the 75 per cent eligibility thresh- old for Objective 1 funds, at 75.9 per cent. The European Commission is proposing that the forthcoming budget will be based on statistics for the Member States' GDP averages taken between 2000 and 2002, but the outlook for the government does not look good. The performance from 2000 is marked by a burst in growth, mainly dictated by the level of investment and export registered by the dominant ST Microeletronics, the island's most significant employer, which expanded its plant facility in 2000. As things stand, the 2000-2002 statistics indicate that Malta's GDP average will be higher than the 75 per cent threshold, relegating it to Objective 1(A) status, a funding category for Member States in transition. It is in fact the classification for those Member States whose GDP average before EU enlargement had been below 75 per cent, but had now statistically appreci- ated because the EU's new GDP average takes into consideration the 10 less wealthy new Member States. Even Malta's GDP average, a poor com- parison at 53 per cent of the EU-15's GDP average before enlargement, clambered close to 75 per cent in 2003, confirming its status as part of the richer, new Member States. The Maltese government is making it clear that it will not be excluded from Objective 1 funding because of the statisti- cal effect, its political argument being that it will not be 'phased out' before actually being 'phased in' at a such a critical stage in its EU adventure. Lawrence Gonzi says the Maltese govern- ment's argument is a strong one, but he will have to convince all the other Member States, who will ultimately determine who will get what in the upcoming budget, and not the Commission. … Whether or not Malta will indeed get Objective 1 funding irrespective of having landed over the 75 per cent threshold, will be a matter of bilateral efforts between Malta and the other Member States to garner support in time for the conclusions of the discussions on the financial perspec- tives. England has already promised its support on the issue. Jean-Claude Juncker, who like Gonzi is both Prime Minister and Finance Minister, is said to enjoy a close relation- ship with the PM as leaders of the EU's two smallest Member States. However, although Gonzi has echoed the European Commission's wishes to conclude discussions on the budget before the Luxembourg presidency ends in June, it is expected that discussions may well drag into the next year, as the financial perspectives are not high on the current presidency's agenda. Gonzi is in fact aware that the Maltese would be better off staving off agreement on the financial perspectives into the coming year when the 2001-2003 statistics would come into play. The reason is that 2003's dismal eco- nomic performance pushes Malta's GDP down to 74.8 per cent of the EU average when taken over the 2001-2003 span – with 2000's economic burst out of the picture, Malta would be untouched by the statisti- cal effect, just scraping into Objective 1 status with a GDP average of 74.8 per cent. Gonzi is however convinced of Malta's arguments, which outline Malta's unfair position at the mercy of the EU's statistical quirks. Not only does it risk losing out on Objective 1 status without having regis- tered a real appreciation in GDP. It also stands to lose out on important Cohesion Funds because of a distribution key that favours low-density regions. At close to 1,200 inhabitants per kilometre squared, it is twelve times the EU average of popula- tion density. The Maltese government has both the justice of its arguments and time on its side. The Luxembourg presidency will not be seeing any finalisation of agreements on the EU budget, irrespective of the Commis- sion's wishes. Either way, Malta is entitled to the right of veto on the EU budget. Without Maltese approval, no EU budget can take off. Bad economy in 2003 could guarantee EU funds MaltaToday 20 February, 2005