A pleasant interlude

They joked that the first thing Malta did to the heads of government of the EU member states on Friday was to take them to a church. A pleasant time was had by all. Angela Merkel stopped by the Gzira kiosk for a ftira very early in the morning. The leader

Then came a leisurely walk up Merchants Street: leaders, aides and minders mixed together. Some got in some business anyway: Theresa May and Angela Merkel walked part of the way together in close conversation. Afterwards, a planned meeting between the two was called off for they had said what they wanted to say during the walk.

Like a guided tour, the group reached the Upper Barrakka and took the lift down to Customs House where three launches stood awaiting them (including the laggards) and after some trouble with the anchor of the leading yacht they crossed Grand Harbour.

Next came a rough climb through tunnels, steps and more tunnels to Fort St Angelo for lunch, where they had a Maltese menu – beginning with Soppa tal-Armla and ending with Zeppoli.

In the afternoon, as happens at all conferences – especially one with a lot of ‘ deplacements’, things got rather ragged. Francois Hollande decided to walk down Republic Street with Charles Xuereb at his side, and kept shaking hands with bystanders on either side. The last we saw was him going to sit in Café Cordina’s open area.

It was a pleasant interlude, nothing more. Perhaps the photo that says it all shows Hollande, Merkel, Juncker and others sitting on the bench in the bow of the yacht, as if they were pensioners enjoying an outing.

You had to pinch yourself to believe that these are the great leaders of Europe meeting here at a crucial time in the history of the world, just out of terrible crisis, in the process of losing an important component of the Europe we know and meeting just days after Europe’s biggest ally got itself a new president who is no friend of it.

We were repeatedly told here in Malta that the summit was about migration. This subject was indeed discussed in the first session (the one they finished early) and the solution the leaders reached has been derided as impracticable by many observers. Tony Barber of the Financial Times said: “The EU bravely contends that it has a Libyan partner, in the shape of the UN-backed government in Tripoli, which will assist its efforts to stem the flow of migrants. Sad to say, this co-oper- ation is largely a figment of the EU’s imagination.”

Nor does it sound, pace the government’s spin doctors, as if the EU leaders lost much sleep, or thought, about the migration problem. Their minds were elsewhere – specifically the consequences of Trump’s election in the US. People in the UK also worry about Brexit but May says she has a clear vision of the way forward and the EU nations also say they have a clear vision of what their position will be once the negotiations begin: there is no tampering with the four freedoms.

May thought she could play the card of the Special Relationship (between the UK and the US) but in Valletta she was rebuffed: the EU does not require mediators. As the Lithuanian president sharply said: “We do not need interlocutors: these days we use Twitter.”

These are early days for the Trump presidency and the omens are not good at all. The confusion as a result of the Executive Order banning people from seven Islamic countries from entering the US is as nothing compared to the questions regarding Trump’s intended future relations with Russia.

If Trump goes ahead and removes the sanctions on Russia as a result of Russia’s invasion be at their posts for long. Hollande is surely out but he may well be joined by others.

Hence maybe the laid-back atmosphere at the summit. Apart from those who will not be there next time, the others are waiting to see what this year of elections will deliver. Unfortunately, there is no one of the stature of Schuman, de Gasperi et al to come up with a vision for Europe for the years and decades to come.

For the euro to survive, it must be backed by a single market that delivers results and growth to its citizens. And for the euro and the single market to survive and thrive there must be a vision for the future. It is no longer enough for Europe to mean the absence of war, or a common market of steel and coal.

The Europe towards which asylum seekers and economic migrants are flocking (especially now with the closure of the US and Australian borders) is a Europe without wars, with a certain sense of equality and social justice, a Europe that replaces protectionist America as the land of opportunity.

It is a pity that we cannot pinpoint any of those in Valletta on Friday who encapsulates this vision. Only Merkel comes near but one suspects she is also one who will not be present for long.