Malta Restructuring Government In Readiness For EU Membership

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

19 June 2003

With full EU membership now just a matter of months away, the Maltese government is taking steps to smooth the transition by restructuring government departments and making plans for a permanent representative in Brussels.

In a recent interview with the The Times of Malta, Foreign Minister Joe Borg explained that this would entail creating an EU affairs directorate in each ministerial department. Accordingly, Borg estimated that an extra 50 members of staff will be needed in the diplomatic and technical fields in order to represent each ministry, something he described a "microcosm of government."

In additional to a permanent representative on membership-related affairs at cabinet level, the government is also setting up a new Inter-Ministerial Committee for EU Affairs.

"This committee will meet regularly to give advice and if necessary mediate on issues which cut across different ministries. It will also have a troubleshooting role and prepare final decisions before an issue goes to the cabinet committee. The inter-ministerial committee will be headed by the permanent representative," Mr Borg told the Times.

He praised the role of the Malta-EU Steering and Action Committee created to allow Maltese citizens to play a larger part in the negotiation process that is likely to be a permanent feature in future EU negotiations.

"These structures worked well and we managed to get results. In fact, we are considered to be among those who got the best packages in the negotiations. With hindsight I would say the structures set up to cater for the negotiations worked well, and sometimes the results achieved were beyond expectations," the Foreign Minister explained.

Borg revealed that the aim of the restructuring is so that the country can be in a position to "ensure that whenever the commission makes a proposal for a new regulation, directive or legislation we will be able immediately to take the proposal on board, analyse it and come up with our position. This will ensure that during the period in which the commission's proposal will be discussed by the various EU institutions we will be able to give our input to safeguard our national interest and to ensure the best possible outcome for our country."

"The EU is not a static institution. We cannot say we have concluded negotiations on the acquis and that's it. In reality, the acquis is evolving all the time and we need to have structures in place to deal with this consistent process of change," Mr Borg told the Times.

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