This is part of the lobby towards an EU-wide harmonisation of the taxation system and which is increasingly targeting Malta, and which is not the only member state to provide incentives to companies to domicile here.

The indications (a recent comment made by the Minister of Finance) suggest that we will have to bend to external pressures and that this regime will have to change; hopefully not that it will entirely stifle our competitive advantage.

I would, however, venture that the domestic backdrop undermines Malta’s credibility and hence its perceived negotiating legitimacy, and that this will end badly. The net effect will be disastrous for an economy increasingly dependent for its growth and investment on financial services, and could push Malta into a severe recession just as the economies of our European neighbours show more sustained recoveries.

Of course, plummeting asset values in Malta would benefit those with the cash to scoop them up. I am therefore not sure whether it serves those with a vested interest here to focus upon our international relations or for that matter to remain within the EU.

Hungary has a language, a culture, a cuisine, a history, the cimbalom, the Rom, the heritage of a proud and elegant empire. It has all that to fall back on. What and where is the substance of what we have to fall back on? A few old buildings and pidgin.

The articles in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung are all a pleasure to read. The art of a language crafted into analysis and where each word is used in its measure finds a parallel only in Daphne’s use of thought and language together, here in Malta.

It is also why the story being on the front page is resonantly starker than what we may perceive to be through simple comparison.

Don’t worry – Hungary just about beats us.