Towards a confidence budget

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Those families which in recent months had their homes demolished while a developer was knocking down houses adjacent to theirs, have ended up in limbo. What’s going to happen to them?

When one re-reads, as I just did, the prebudget document published not so long ago, one confirms that the confidence being felt in the economy and finances of the country is justified.

D uring the next two years, economic growth is expected to continue at the ongoing rate, unprecedented as it is. The indications are that the public income and outgo will continue to sustain enough fiscal space to enable the government to carry out change and modernisation projects at full throttle.

In this scenario that since Independence, has not been shared by any government, it still makes sense to be critical in the questions one poses.

For instance: In government’s expenditure plans, is sufficient account being taken of the need to increase recurrent expenditure on the maintenance and repair of facilities that are undergoing significant deterioration, basically because of the very strong growth that we are experiencing?

Is our natural and cultural environment being adequately protected?

Have we become too dependent on services that are ending up under international “attack”, not least from EU member states?

Is the educational system turning out young people who are really well trained, for now and for the future, in those sectors which we claim to want to develop?

Challenges for Helena

A double challenge faces Helena Dalli with the equality portfolio she’s been assigned in the von der Meyer college of European Commissioners.

How will she provide structure and momentum to the efforts she shall lead within an EU that has become more not less heterogeneous, in the attitudes of people and in the behaviour of governments? How much moral and political backing can she mobilise to carry the required changes forward to completion?

It is true she can count on support from von der Leyen herself, who is wellknown for her own commitment to Equality policies. Will this be enough?

For there is that second challenge: Helena has been assigned limited administrative personnel within the Commission bureaucracy. Perhaps this happened because her responsibilities on a stand alone basis foreshadow a completely different way of doing things.

So, a comment made by the ETUC general secretary makes sense: He argued that Helena does not need to concentrate on the publication of new legal texts, which will anyway remain on paper. Better collaborate with the Commissioner responsible for employment affairs to ensure that the needed changes in how men and women get paid for the jobs they do are implemented in practice.

Gonzalez

The interview given a week ago to El Pais by Felipe Gonzalez, exSpanish Prime Minister for fourteen years, was most interesting.

He discussed present developments in the political and economic landscape of Europe and beyond. He claimed that the fundamental problem in how globalisation is being managed arises from the fact that the process is not sustainable. Meanwhile, rules by which international conduct used to be regulated, few as they are or were, have been ignored. The confrontation between China and the US is bound to become really acute.

In the past, I used to be a bit put off by Gonzalez for he was too loquacious. In this interview he had a lot to say but in concise terms. He decries the way by which Europe, which has originated so many innovations, then allowed others to take them over.

Limbo

Those families which in recent months had their homes demolished while a developer was knocking down houses adjacent to theirs, have ended up in limbo. What’s going to happen to them?

The government did all it could by providing accommodation till a decision is taken about what happens next. Court inquiries were set up and are still proceeding. When will they come to an end? And what happens after that?

The government is correct in keeping back from trying to “do everything” itself as this could help the developers to evade having to assume their responsibilities for what happened.

Meanwhile time has passed and the families cannot be blamed for feeling that they have been abandoned.

How can judicial inquiries that deal with such cases be put on the very fast track?

How can the responsibilities of those who create such situations be nailed down without hesitation and in the best interests of the victims?

These cannot any longer be considered as academic questions. Decisive replies should be given through the introduction of a procedure that allows for immediate implementation. Surely among other measures, construction and development projects should be subject to an insurance guarantee by which persons who suffer damages like the ones at issue are given swift compensation. It’s absolutely unfair that such victims are left in limbo.

Negative interest rates

In the eurozone, when putting one’s money in the bank, one either has to make do with derisory interest payments or even accept negative rates – which means one has to pay for the bank to accept one’s deposits. It seems as if demand is not sufficiently high for funds that allow entrepreneurs to operate, invest and employ till eventually their efforts translate into profits.

To encourage economic activity, the lowering of interest rates has been considered as the major tool, in the hope that yes, as soon as economies attain a good momentum, the appetite for funds that are available for lending will grow, pushing interest rates up.

As of now, this has not happened.

To where?

It’s curious how over the years a number of MEPs resign to take up some other post. The last one in line was the socialist MEP Gualtieri who became Italy’s finance minister.

In past years, others who did like he did included: the socialist Pittella who contested the Italian general elections; the socialist Ferreira, who became deputy governor of the Portuguese central bank (and has now been nominated European Commissioner); Balz from the EPP who also became a director of the Bundesbank in Germany; the Liberal Goulard who became French defence minister, moved to her country’s central bank and has now been nominated Commissioner; the socialist Kofod who became Danish minister of foreign affairs; the socialist Dancila who was appointed Rumania’s prime minister; the Lega MEP Salvini, who transfered to his country’s Parliament; the FN leader Le Pen who too migrated to the French Parliament...

Naturally I know more about transfers which happen in the socialist group but I am sure that in other political “families” similar moves occur. What is significant in many of them is that those who give up their European function do so in exchange for a national posting.