Yardsticks

Note: This post may also be viewed on the new J'Accuse website : http://jaccuse.wordpress.com.

Last weekend's Maltatoday editorial ends with the assertion that "Europe is indeed the new yardstick". Too true. The main reasons I voted for joining the European Union were instances like the current hullaballoo on the Bird's Directive. I knew that the MLPN have become too rooted in the favours for the locals and summersaults for the vociferous pressure groups system. This was accompanied by the nagging suspicion that it would take more than a lifetime or some shock event for people to start shifting their voting habits. So how to get about the necessary change anyway?

Easy. Vote for a system that"imposes" common standards with the most forward looking states on the continent. A system that has targets that are consonant with living in the 21st century and that eventually (and hopefully) become the prodding stick for the reluctant relics in government and opposition to change the song and dance that they have accustomed us to. And Pullicino is right. It may take some time for the first thunderbolt to hit the government. But that is the delay effect of membership. Once the first ECJ decisions start rolling out then the party in government will need a very very effective PR machine to make us all ignore the list of failures that will be automatically generated.

For now the ministers, minions and opposition will feel comfortable naysaying and minimising the effects of the process. It is still all too distant for the easily appeased populace to make any sense of it. They will at first believe their minister's assertions that Malta is right and will defend its position to the utmost. Of course there is nothing wrong with that. Malta has every right to defend its position... what worries me are instances like the Bird's Directive... where it is evident that the government is only delaying a fact known to itself and anyone with a modicum of interest in European Law. Where the honourable members know that they are in the wrong and are knowingly incurring liabilities for the nation. Why?

Hopefully we will have less of that. The European Yardstick will help much in this area. Some have already woken up to this possibility. Reporting... informing and forcing relcutant authorities into action. Take this website called gozitans.eu for example.... an interesting exercise in getting things going in Gozo. I have only just discovered it and cannot vouch for all its content but it is an example of the new kind of citizen action we can expect more and more as the new yardstick takes shape.

And good riddance to old ways.