John Borg Manduca

Last December’s strong vote in favour of the SME Strategy that I led on behalf of the S&D Group in the European Parliament was surely a positive day and a fitting outcome for the months of hard work that went into it.

At the loss of a much loved family member and longtime friend in a sadness beyond sentience, one mourns in a sorrow that cannot be spoken. Only the recollection of the now unwoven threads of shared memories provides some form of consolation. My initial encounter with John was in our shared St Edward’s College days. John was my house captain and prefect. Already in adolescence we shared a mutual respect and esteem for each other; little knowing that our lives were later to be interlaced and intertwined, and that his sister Myriam would become my cherished and beloved wife.

After his tutelage at the Military College of Sandhurst he focused mainly on his military career, and later after his marriage to Josephine, one of the most charming and ebullient personalities one could encounter, postings abroad followed, and he rose to the rank of Major. Yet, the kernel of what later was to make him an outstanding artist was already seeded.

During his twenty seven years of military service, he was what one could term a ‘Sunday Artist’, although already highly productive and participating in both solo and collective exhibitions. Soon, what was a sideline hobby manifested itself into a professional missionary vocation. Moving from brush to palette knife, as a fullyfledged artist he focused on renditions of his native xanthic island’s townscapes and their surrounding cerulean seas, thematics which soon were to become his trademark. With deft strokes of his palette knife he elevated the sun-ignited stones and shadowed streets of the Maltese architectural typology to a level of poetic reverie. His canvases of the island’s saffron built-forms and the dancing of their shadows rendered him a kaleidoscopic alchemist. It was however, in his depiction of the multifarious moods of the sea, at times calm, still, and moonlit in motionless serenity, or more so in their vertiginous vigour with undulating wrathful waves that John manifested himself as a master. When painting the anger of the sea John handled his palette as a jazz musician handles his drumsticks.

Many a time he renounced his colourful palette to reduce his images to stark nigrescent black tones; it was then that palette knife turned magician’s wand. Apart from images of oil rigs and local fishing boats, the prize works of this series were those John prepared to illustrate the Scottish concrete-poet-artist Ian Hamilton Finlay’s poetic verbal allegories. The twining of Finlay’s verbal aphorisms and John’s visual delineations on the thematics of land and sea war machines produced one of the most potent metaphorical amalgamations of word and image. A number of these works form part of the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Scotland.

I remain proud and privileged to have initiated the publication and provided the critical essay to John’s book ‘The Palette’ (Libria Italy 2004) which apart from my own, carried texts by Finlay himself and the ubiquitous Scottish art-impresario Richard Demarco. The book remains an apt tribute to a skillful artist who produced a significant and important body of work.

While John will surely be remembered for his pictorial legacy of our island’s scenography, he will above all be held in memory for his exceptional personal qualities. Elegant in attire, distinguished in presence, generous and immaculately mannered, he was the paragon gentleman. Always courteous, kind, tender and gentle, John was truly an honourable man. I am sure, for all who loved and knew him he leaves a mnemonic luminous afterglow, and that in the Heavenly mansions, where he now surely dwells, he will be handed a Divine palette, to render the paradisiacal seascapes of Heaven.

And yet, the vote itself was only just the beginning of our next and most important goal — that of implementing Europe’s Strategy for Small and Medium-sized firms in an effective and farreaching way.

My resolve, of course, is now to up the ante and work even harder to see it through.

At a webinar held last Tuesday on the role of state aid rules in the post-Covid recovery of maritime and insular regions, which was co-ordinated by the European Parliament’s Intergroup on

Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Areas (SEArica) in tandem with the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, I voiced my position on the matter in the strongest of terms.

The Covid-19 pandemic has plunged Europe into one of its worst economic crises ever. The negative impact has been a highly asymmetrical one at both the territorial level and across economic sectors. The pace of the recovery is itself expected to be uneven.

Regional disparities, alongside the existing social and economic ones, are likely to rise.

Maritime and insular regions stand out among those that have been hit the hardest — this is due in large part, to the specialisation of their economies, which often includes heavy reliance on tourism, as well as their insularity in terms of geographic location.

In view of this I insisted, during my address, on the need for a permanent increase of de minimis thresholds, as well as for more flexibility and due consideration for the natural disadvantages that Europe’s islands, and the businesses that operate from them, continue to experience today.

I also called for a frank discussion on the role of State Aid Rules in the current economic crisis that is affecting the entire continent in the wake of the pandemic.

Here again, I pressed for more flexible State Aid rules - on a more permanent basis - with regard to transport. This in order to ensure that the criteria do begin to properly take into account the local specificities of transport even between islands, and hence helping to overcome the disadvantage of location that small islands have to endure.

Permanent disadvantages, I argued, require lasting solutions. On this crucial principle, the special situation of islands should be recognised and addressed once and for all.

I also raised an important query about the moment when the derogation allowed by the State Aid Temporary Framework in response to Covid-19 is over.

What will happen to the economies of Europe’s islands when this time actually comes? This, I believe, is why a phase-out period is of the essence — one during which the progressive and gradual return to a new normality must be ensured.

I stressed, moreover, upon the need that short-term aid measures be taken with a view to a long-term strategy — a strategy that is tailored to the particular drawbacks that islands are going through in terms of their connectivity and competitiveness.

Such a strategy will need to put a proper focus on the strategic sectors of islands, such as sustainable tourism and transportation. This is itself an important reason why more flexibility is needed when it comes to state aid.

In my address I also took the opportunity to insist that sustainable tourism does not only mean hospitality, but encompasses different sectors that can contribute to the diversification of our local economy, which is mainly constituted of small businesses.

Sustainable tourism would, I believe, help spur innovation to enable a circular economy and clean mobility solutions, as well as help enhance initiatives in the field of landscape management and the enhancement of our cultural heritage.

The SEArica webinar was by far not the first occasion during which I was vocal on the strong support our SMEs need.

In the wake of the EP’s plenary vote on the European SME strategy in December, I have kept working to see it implemented — and to have its benefits reach the millions of businesses across the European Union, their employees and the families they sustain, including Maltese and Gozitan ones.

In January I also tabled a parliamentary question asking the European Commission to clarify the next steps in the actual implementation of the European Strategy for SMEs, asking for the adoption of more effective actions to reduce the administrative burden that small and medium-sized businesses still face today.

Furthermore, I urged the European Commission to address the structural drawbacks that affect island-based enterprises, with their geographic location being a main cause.

It was also in January that I met European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and discussed the various obstacles that small islands like ours have to face.

With Vice-President Vestager I reiterated my commitment to place the policy for islands higher on the European agenda to ensure these receive the attention they deserve.

Almost a year ago, none of us was yet aware of the avalanche that was going to hit us — Covid19.

We have kept up our effort of goodwill and hard work ever since, and eventually we will come out on the other side. For the time being we shall keep planning the way forward. I am confident that our daily tenacity is taking us a step closer to success.

“What will happen to the economies of Europe’s islands when this time actually comes? This, I believe, is why a phase-out period is of the essence — one during which the progressive and gradual return to a new normality must be ensured.”