Mur Lura

DISKORS MILL-ONOR. EDWARD FENECH ADAMI, PRIM MINISTRU TA? MALTA, WAQT L-ISKAMBJU TA? L-AWGURI GHAS-SENA L-GDIDA MAL-KORP DIPLOMATIKU

pr0035

12/01/2001

Once again I have the opportunity to greet you at the	start of a new year. I wish to extend to you and to your families seasonal best wishes. Through you, I also wish to extend the greetings of the Government and people of Malta to the Governments and peoples of your respective countries.
For Malta, the past year has been one of further	consolidation. We are making steady progress in laying solid foundations that will promote our growing prosperity and enhance our contribution to the global economy. There is a growing awareness, at all levels of Maltese society, that the real economic choice is not between staying entrenched behind protective barriers or opening up to the rest of the world, but in finding the manner in which we can best prepare ourselves to compete in the global market.
At the internal level, the key economic and social	questions relate to how best to improve our productivity and efficiency, and the fairest way to distribute the required effort and sacrifice, as well as its rewards. At the external level our main concerns relate to the role we must play in the process of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and, in more general terms, to the manner in which we can develop our role for peace and cooperation in the multilateral institutions.
Underlying and complementing all our endeavours is	our goal of early membership in the European Union, and the need to ensure that the accession negotiations in which we are engaged successfully respond to our legitimate needs and deepest aspirations.
The work on our negotiations will undoubtedly keep us	very busy in the coming months. But I wish to assure you that we will, as always, be equally attentive to maintaining and enhancing the bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation which Malta has built up over the years.
Over the last months there has been good confirmation	that the Maltese economy is well on its way to recovery from the negative trends of the last few years. This is manifested in the healthy figures related to economic growth, to the level of employment and to the rate of inflation.
The deficit reduction programme is proceeding better	than expected. There has been a marked improvement in our export results, a notable advance in investment and a steady performance in the services sector, which includes tourism, financial services and transhipment.
These positive results are the early products of the	far-reaching structural reform programme in which we are engaged. Important ingredients of this reform programme are the medium to long term nature of its main objectives, the broad social consensus on which it must be based, and the openness to the global economy by which it is inspired.
In this regard our main efforts continue to be	concentrated in three areas ? increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector, enhancing the productivity and competitive capacity of the private sector, and upgrading the country's physical, legislative and administrative infrastructures.
Significant progress is being achieved in all these	three areas. The collective agreement signed with the Public Service in 1998 was premised on the understanding that progressive improvements in conditions of service would be an integral component of improved motivation, discipline and efficiency in a leaner, more result-oriented and customer-friendly Service. This month it reaches an important phase in its implementation, with the entry into effect of the agreed major revision of salaries.
The liberalisation of our economy presents a mix of	challenges and opportunities to the Maltese entrepreneur. My Government's objective is to offer encouragement and assistance in overcoming the challenges, as well as advice and support in exploiting the opportunities. As our encouraging export performance demonstrates, the benefits are already emerging.
Important new infrastructure has recently been put in	place in the tourism and transhipment industries ? the setting up of the Malta Tourism Authority in the first case and the completion of the Freeport Terminal Two development project in the second. In the coming months and years these are expected to bring about significant improvements in these two vital industries.
A restructuring programme is being finalised for our	shipyards which will set the time frame and modalities for the phasing out of state aid to the dockyards and to endow them with the capacity to eventually make their own direct contribution to Malta's economic development.
Our economic liberalisation programme includes a	significant privatisation dimension. Among the sectors to be included are the freeport, the international airport, public lotto and banking. We will proceed with privatisation on a pragmatic basis, taking every care to ensure that essential services are maintained for all.
Extensive ground has been covered over the last	twelve months in the legislative and administrative domain. Progress has been achieved in the liberalisation of our telecommunications industry, as well as in the areas of industrial and intellectual property, statistics, internal audit, public transport, merchant shipping, exchange control, competition and the management of resources.
Work will continue in these areas, as well as other	areas including data protection, electronic commerce, regional policy planning, environment protection and agriculture. Additionally, a new Business Promotion Act, placing our incentives to industry on a broader and more up to date footing, is being debated in Parliament.
The coming months will see the start of two major	infrastructural projects in the main harbours. Our planning will continue on other significant infrastructural projects in other sectors, including energy, environmental management and transport. Work on the major new hospital is also proceeding according to plan.
Against this backdrop of a thriving society built	upon work and solidarity, we continue to seek the necessary base from which to seek our rightful role in the international community. The Euro-Mediterranean area is the natural focus of our more immediate attention.
Over the last months, the Middle East has alternately	been the source of renewed hope and serious concern. Looking beyond the immediate complexities and disappointments, we salute the immense efforts of the main protagonists in this protracted tragedy to seek an acceptable solution. We continue to support the efforts of the European Union to enhance its own contribution to the peace process in a manner that more effectively reflects both its interests and capabilities.
In contrast to the Middle East, the situation in the	Balkans has been a source of hope and encouragement over the past year. The democratic process is progressively asserting itself in all the countries that have emerged from the former Yugoslavia. The work undertaken by the international community is therefore bearing good fruit, in spite of past disappointments. Here, also, the European Union has a crucial role to play in safeguarding what has been achieved, as well as laying the ground for a stable and prosperous future.
The process of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation has	inevitably been negatively affected by the recent setbacks in the Middle East Peace process. However, the agreement by EU member states on a renewed allocation for MEDA for the next six years is a welcome development that should help in reinvigorating the Barcelona process. Malta remains fully committed to this process, which we see as an ideal basis upon which long term stability, security and prosperity can be achieved in the Mediterranean.
Looking at the broader international picture, one	cause of disappointment has been the failure of the November Climate Conference in the Hague to reach a successful conclusion. With increasing globalisation it becomes less possible to opt out of critical areas of collective responsibility. The safeguarding of the global environment for present and future generations is certainly one such area.
During the year 2000, the international economic	environment has been generally favourable, both in the industrialised as well as the developing world. In recognising the beneficial effect this has had on most of us we must also remind ourselves of the need to continue building solid foundations for the future. This is particularly necessary in the area of further improvements in the conditions and terms of trade, especially for the poorer and weaker nations.
We must also continue to carefully nurture and	develop the multilateral institutions which have been painstakingly constructed over the last few decades. The impressive edifice of global institutions, in particular the United Nations system, and regional institutions, such as the Council of Europe and OSCE, is an integral facet of the evolving global society. Our constant endeavour should be to put this edifice to ever better use.
Malta's objective of membership in the European Union	underlies and complements all our endeavours. We are already seeing how even the pre-accession process itself adds substance and direction to our national development effort. It is providing us with tested models for our necessary reforms, helping us to better define our targets, and extending much needed encouragement and assistance in the areas of most complexity and difficulty.
In the external field, the growing role that the	Union is playing in international relations strengthens our conviction that, as a member of the Union, Malta will be better able to fulfill its role for peace and cooperation in the Mediterranean and beyond.
The past twelve months have undoubtedly been the most	productive for our EU membership application since we first introduced it more than ten years ago. Within a space of ten months we have opened negotiations on well over half of the area that needs to be covered. To date, we have provisionally concluded the negotiations on well over a third of this area.
This record is, in itself, a gauge of our readiness	and commitment to membership. Furthermore, it reconfirms that we will achieve our primary objective of being involved in the next enlargement of the Union.
The agreements reached by the European Council in	Nice have given a significant boost to the enlargement process. In the first place, the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference on Institutional Reform has cleared the way for the final phase of the accession negotiations with the most advanced candidate countries. This will also be greatly helped by the constructive proposals on the accession strategy elaborated by the Commission and endorsed by the Union's member states.
What is equally important for Malta and other	candidate countries is the fact that the decisions taken at Nice on the question of institutional reform have preserved what we believe to be one of the most essential principles upon which the European Union is founded, namely the fundamental equality of all member states.
Admittedly, some aspects of the Nice decisions	regarding the level of representation proposed for new member states, including Malta, are not necessarily convergent with this fundamental principle. In the overall balance, however, we are confident that the integrity of this principle is preserved. It will be Malta's objective to work towards the further safeguarding of this principle both during the negotiating process, and when it becomes a member of the Union.
Our aim for this year is to advance our negotiations	to the point where only a few key issues will be left to be concluded during the first part of next year. This will fit in within our primary objective of catching up with the most advanced candidate countries to be included in the next enlargement.
It will also fit in with the broader framework in	which the Commission and the Council have inserted their strategic thinking on the enlargement process ? most notably the target of concluding negotiations with the most advanced candidates during 2002 - together with the expectation that the new member states will be able to take part in the next European Parliament elections due in 2004.
We can therefore continue working on the ever more	realistic assumption that we will be in a position to hold a referendum on the results of the negotiations around the end of 2002.
We are under no illusion about the significant effort	still required if we are to achieve our objective. At the same time we are also aware of the factors which
will be working in our favour. A large part of the	necessary work for the remaining negotiations is already in place. We have finalised and submitted our negotiating positions on all but two chapters ? Agriculture and Environment ? and these two will be ready during the course of this month. Through the process of preparing our position papers and negotiating those chapters that have already been opened, we have by now identified those few issues which will require substantive, as distinct from purely technical, negotiations.
The stage is set to open all the remaining chapters	during the first part of the year and provisionally close most of them by the end of the year.

Excellencies,

I wish once again to extend to you my greetings and best wishes, together with the augury that our common endeavours will contribute towards the furtherance of our bilateral relations, as well as towards our collective task of promoting regional and international peace and understanding.

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