Il-Guy missed the bit where we didn’t become Switzerland in the Med
Karmenu Vella (right) with yet another poison dwarf who just won’t go away.
This was my column in yesterday’s The Malta Independent.
Karmenu Vella is supposed to be writing the Labour Party’s electoral programme, but he is clearly at an absolute loss.
So Joseph Muscat has had to convene a congress of Laburisti to brainstorm for brilliant policy ideas. Imagine that – government by the masses.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t Labour masses, but the fact that they’ve always voted Labour, through hell and high water, tells us quite a bit about their thinking skills, which are neither lateral not literal but…well, never mind.
But there’s worse. Il-Guy took to a public podium earlier this week to announce that “our agreement with the European Union can be changed if it no longer serves our purposes”.
What? The Times and Malta Today, which cheerfully report every scratch on a bendy-bus and every yawn on Franco’s blog or Jeffrey’s wall (though they didn’t send a photographer to his ‘wedding of the year’ last Saturday – shame) missed this big story completely.
Jeffrey and Franco will be out of the political picture not after the general election, but weeks before with the dissolution of parliament.
But what they think and say seems to be far more noteworthy than what Karmenu Vella is up to, even though Vella is by far the most important figure in the Opposition, more influential even than party leader Joseph Muscat, and will be the most important figure in the Labour government (so help us God).
Vella is supposed to be writing the government’s programme for 2013 to 2018; he will the most important minister in Prime Minister Joseph’s cabinet; he is by far the most influential figure now; and yet, when he says something like that, the only newspaper which takes note is L-Orizzont. And it takes note for all the wrong reasons, which it thinks are the right ones.
What is most frightening about Il-Guy’s statement about Malta and the European Union is not the way it betrays his still-cherished resentment towards EU membership and the failure of Labour’s goals against it.
Nor is it the fact that, more than eight years of membership down the line and with Malta changed so very much for the better – can we even remember life before membership, or how terribly restricting and narrow it was? – Il-Guy remains blockheaded about it.
No, what is most frightening is that Il-Guy’s words betray his consummate failure to understand the nature of EU membership. Malta does not have “an agreement” with the European Union, Mister Guy. It negotiated terms of membership. Malta is an integral part of the European Union.
Countries which have agreements with the European Union must obviously be outside the European Union, like Switzerland (not the abortive one in the Mediterranean) or Morocco.
It takes two or more parties to make an agreement. One party cannot make an agreement with itself. Malta is part of the EU so Malta cannot make agreements with the EU. All that business took place before Malta became a member.
If I did not remember Il-Guy so very well as one of Mintoff’s and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s most appalling cabinet ministers, I would say that it is incredible that he does not know this. But given his history, no further evidence of Vella’s lack of intelligence, education and information (his street-fox cunning, used almost exclusively for business deals, should not be mistaken for a high IQ) is going to surprise me.
No, I am not at all surprised that Joseph Muscat’s chief adviser, the one spinning his wheels and pressing his buttons, does not know that an EU member state cannot revise or renegotiate the terms of membership. It can only pull out and cease to be a member.
I trust that this is not what Karmenu Vella has in mind, given that he also said that “EU membership is not the issue”. Joseph the Leader spent quite a few years trying to convince us, through his Super One television show ‘Made in Brussels’ and his column in L-Orizzont, to vote against EU membership because of numerous factors including starvation and death in wars, and then promptly buzzed off to Brussels as a member of the European Parliament.
So he really should give Chief Adviser Guy a bit of a crash course. Or perhaps that should be krexx kors.
I am somehow left with the feeling that the next five years of Labour government are going to be like a protracted episode of some depressingly tedious (“trying hard to be amusing”) ZOO performance on Super One, and about as edifying and enjoyable.
Give Karmenu Vella a fright wig and Joseph Muscat a pair of fishnet tights, and we’re sorted. Roll on the crassness, vulgarity and worst of all, the sheer, unadulterated stupidity.
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Either they don’t understand the rules of the “game”, or they simply ignore and intend to play by their own (interpretation of the) rules.
In either case, these people are DANGEROUS.
With or without (the current state in general) an articulation of clear political public policy (beyond their PL sermons to the PL masses), at least, there is history and various “pearls” like these (whenever someone from the PL camp dares to speak, or write) to enlighten (throw light on) the hopeless darkness ahead.
And as amusing, entertaining and funny as Flippers. Imma dawn in-nies bis-serjeta?
One of the chapters in Karmenu Il-Guy’s 2013 Labour Manifesto – or is it a roadmap – might actually be: “Insiru membri shah tal-Ewropa billi naghmlu ftehim ta’ Partnership, l-Aqwa Ghazla.”
A member of the German govt. has commented and let’s say asked.
” Why should Germany have the same amount of votes as MALTA”
It’s not so nice to feel what a non-entity some consider us to be.
Il-Guy is right especially when if comes to burden sharing.
We have been told that Swizerland has taken 16 of our uninvited guests, and this a non-member state.
Yes some things should be put right and it is a shame that the present govt has done nothing about it.
Of course we hear now and again some high official say that we want this and that, but of course this is just “Playing to the Gallerija”and the number of these unfortunates keeps on growing and we keep on paying.
Silvio, and another member of German government said that whilst everyone can express their own personal views, the view of this German gentlemen was not the view of the German government.
Don’t do a The Times, reporting only what suits your purpose.
“it is a shame that the present govt has done nothing about it”. If you only listen to One News it would definitely seem that way.
Hundreds have been re-homed in other countries and burden sharing has been on the agenda of the PN MEPs ever since they got to Brussels.
Don’t expect countries to fall over themselves to help us out when most of them have to wrestle with their own electorate over the same problem.
So high officials are “Playing to the Gallerija”, are they? That’s rich coming from a Laburist whose party has done NOTHING ELSE EXCEPT that for the last twenty-five years (less 22 months when it was busy wreaking as much havoc as is humanly possible in the allotted time).
Il-Guy needs to spell it out to us if he is in favour of carrying out Joseph’s sublime idea of letting nature take its course to take care of our ‘problem’ while we sit tight and hope for the best (the best for us, of course).
What are those dreadful Germans up to now? Are they claiming that a country with a population exceeding 80 million should have more say in the ECB than Malta? Dan x’igifieri?! I say we re-write the rules of EU membership – that’ll show’em!
Let’s all vote for il-Guy, halli jiktbilna naqa’ dawn ir-regoli godda. Taf int, bhal il-programm elettorali tal-PL… jew il-51 proposals
http://therealbudget.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/51-proposals-EN.pdf
I really cannot accept that to critciise one has to be destructive.
No one of you has been honest enough to refer to the fact that what il- Guy mentioned, specifically, was he wanted to see some changes in BURDEN SHARING,
Who wouldn’t?
Maybe some of our contractors who are finding it a good supply of cheap labour. I am sure that will leave them with more money to donate to CHARITY.
[Daphne – Silvio, you contradict yourself. On the one hand you say that people with refugee status are in paid employment, and on the other hand you say they are a burden. If they are working, they are not a burden. The true burden to Maltese society are the roughly 40% of women between the ages of 25 and 60 who feel entitled not to work, which means that they are, effectively, non-productive and a burden on society, except when they are actively engaged in looking after young children, when they are still economically non-productive but contributing in another more important way. But then, being a far-right-winger, you probably think that women’s place is in the home.]
Sod off, Silvio. You and your sort are the reason this country will forever be a third world Sicilian province. The sooner we realise we ARE a non-entity, the sooner we can start to drag ourselves into modernity.
Daphne,as always you are right, but this time only if you consider earning less than100E a week, as being employed.
@Baxter.
Unlike yourself I do not consider my country to be a NON-ENTITY. It take persons with an acute sense of INFERIORITY COMPLEX to do so.
One of the ways we can “start dragging ourselves into modernity” is be proud of our country and convinced that we have all it takes to do so. Unless you have a minister who considers us all to be CWIEC.
Coming from a P.N. minister I’m sure you agree with this remark, but I can assure you that Malta is not only full of Cwiec, like the ones you see in your mirror every morning.
Qed thawwad il-hass mal-ba#$, Silvio.
Even if ALL of us Maltese were above-average, even exceptional, specimens of the human race – our country still could not, and should not, expect to be treated as if we’re the centre of the universe. That PL leaders spout inanities about ‘EU membership re-negotiations’ (following up on the fictitious ‘EU partnernxipp’) just demonstrates incompetence and/or populism.
Baxxter is right – until we are no longer hindered by people such as il-Guy and yourself, Malta will not be in a position to punch above its weight.
Go on, keep on propping the PL – a party that’s so confident in our country that their approach to EU memberships was best exemplified by their cry “Sicilian hairdressers will take our jobs!”.
Well, guess what, many of us work/ed with foreigners in and outside Malta and kick/ed ass – so your patriotic posturing is about as convincing as Bill Clinton claiming he only met Monica Lewinsky to teach her knitting.
@ Dust
I never implied that we Maltese are above-average or exeptional specimens.
I believe that even though we are the smallest nation, we should still be on equal footing with all the other nations.
Welcome to yet another tired debate.
It is morally wrong for Malta to have the same voice as, say, Germany, which is practically saving Silvio and his children from being sold into slavery in China or Qatar.
And yet it does, in many international organisations. A good dose of humility and a large-scale atlas would perhaps garner us some respect.
Karmenu Vella is what the Italians describe as a “furbo”.
Apart from that he is mediocrity personified.
Why should it suit my purpose?
I was just repeating what this member (doesn’t mean he is as you say a gentleman) was reported to have said which you have to admit is what they think of us.
This is ominous stuff. However, why would they be so stupid as to reveal their intentions before being elected?
Oh, I know, they’re stupid.
I’m scared to think what will happen once Labour are in government.