Author: SME Chamber

Malta’s prices lower than other 18 EU Member States and 20% lower than average –
In 2011, price levels for consumer goods and services differed widely across Member States, the EUI average being 51%. Denmark (142% of the EU27 average) had the highest price level, followed by Sweden (128%), Finland (125%) and Luxembourg (122%). Price levels of 10% to 20% above the EU27 average were found in Ireland (117%), Belgium (112%) and France (111%), while the Netherlands (108%), Austria (107%), Germany and Italy (both 103%) and the United Kingdom (102%) had levels up to 10% above the average.

Spain (97% of the EU27 average) and Greece (95%) were just below the
average, while Cyprus (89%), Portugal (87%) and Slovenia (84%) were
between 10% and 20% below. Price levels between 20% and 30% below the
average were observed in Estonia (79%), Malta (78%), the Czech Republic
(77%), Latvia (74%) and Slovakia (72%), and levels between 30% and 40%
below in Lithuania (66%), Hungary (64%), Poland and Romania (both 60%).

The
lowest price levels were found in Bulgaria (51%).
Food price levels varied by one to two across the Member States
Price levels for food and non-alcoholic beverages in 2011 ranged from
67% of the EU27 average in Bulgaria to 136% of the average in Denmark.
Differences in price levels between Member States were less for this
product group than for total goods and services.

For alcoholic beverages
and tobacco, prices were lowest in Hungary (63% of the average) and
highest in Ireland (163%). This large price variation is mainly due to
differences in taxation of these products among Member States.

Clothing is one of the groups of products showing a smaller price
variation among Member States, with Bulgaria (75% of the average)
cheapest and Sweden (133%) most expensive. Consumer electronics6 is
another group of products where prices differed less among Member
States, ranging from 89% of the average in Poland to 125% in Malta.
Excluding Denmark (167% of the average), price differences among Member
States were also limited for personal transport equipment, with levels
varying from 83% of the average in Bulgaria to 122% in Portugal.
For restaurants and hotels, price variations were more significant, with
price levels ranging from 45% of the average in Bulgaria to 154% of the
average in Denmark.

A fuller report is available at:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-22062012-AP/EN/2-22062012-AP-EN.PDF

During a public consultation seminar on the 15th June organized by MIEMA last week, president of Renewable Energy Section Noel Gauci made GRTU’s position clear that under no circumstance will GRTU tolerate that Malta invests in foreign countries to reach its renewable energy targets, if similar investments are possible locally. If any investment is to be done, then government should make it in Malta to create business and jobs for our own companies, not elsewhere. Even if it had to cost more to do it here, which is very unlikely, the advantages of employment and related benefits will greatly outdo the difference in cost. Moreover it is essential to have full control on such sensitive plants, something which cannot be guaranteed if it is done on foreign soil.

Noel Gauci also commented that while initiatives like the one taken by MIEMA are commendable, one should be cautious when reporting to the media. For example a recent article selected part of a MIEMA study and emphasized an issue that does not even exist, something which MIEMA officials agreed with.

The article referred to glare that could affect aircraft during landing. To date no pilots have complained on such issue, mostly because the PV systems installed in Malta are too small to make any significant impact of the pilots’ visual. Mr. Gauci suggested that MIEMA issues a statement to clarify their position.

Another topic raised was that we need to stop wasting our time proposing the impossible, such as installation of PV farms on virgin green spaces, of which the country has very little left. To the contrary we should focus on what is doable, such as installations in areas already scarred by heavy industry, the separate use of factory roof tops, installations out at sea, etc. Mr Gauci also noted that GRTU is continuously liaising with MRA and PPCD to ensure that before the end of the year a new domestic PV scheme is launched. Although GRTU had worked hard to see a scheme launched prior the trade fair, circumstances beyond everyone’s control made it impossible for such a scheme to materialize.

The Prime Minister replied to a letter sent by GRTU on the suspension of the ERDF Energy Grant Scheme. The PM said that he appreciates GRTU’s point about the cash flow of companies awaiting payment and that Government is committed to completing this process in the earliest time possible. He assured the GRTU that although payments cannot be approved and processed at this point, administrative processing of claims is continuing with a view to processing bona fide claims as soon as the enquiries are complete.

The GRTU National Executive Council has today convened and discussed amongst other subject the EU White Paper on Pensions. In his report the Director General Vincent Farrugia pointed out that:
As a result of low birth rates and rising life expectancy, the population is ageing. Projections on demographics should therefore be analysed and monitored on a regular basis to allow adequate and timely adjustments of the pension system to new conditions.

However, these projections, including future public expenditure on pensions, must be used and viewed with care, as they may include many assumptions hard to predict in the long term. Eurostat's assumption that life expectancy will increase by seven years in the EU over the next 40 years, although based on the best expert knowledge, cannot be certain. Further improvements in longevity can be influenced by changes in working and living conditions. It is doubtful that a mere rise in legal retirement age can solve the problems connected with demographic challenges.

On the contrary, this may push a substantial number of elderly people below the poverty line, particularly women. What is needed is to increase the effective retirement age up to the existing legal retirement age using initiatives to foster extended working life, flanked by effective growth and employment policies. Only a real "active ageing" policy, aimed at increased participation in training and lifelong learning, can sustainably boost employment rates for older people, who give up work early due to health problems, the intensity of work, early dismissals, and lack of opportunities for training or re entering the labour market. In addition, a rise in legal retirement age can increase pressure on other pillars of social security. Automatic adjustment mechanisms for retirement age, based either on longer life expectancy or demographic change, may be assessed as dangerous for society as a whole and therefore not supported.

Most of these mechanisms automatically increase retirement age in correlation with extended life expectancy and other economic or labour market parameters. Such fundamental decisions on living conditions should be taken by parliaments, not computers, after a broad public debate, including social partners and other important stakeholders. In addition it should also be taken into account the fact that although it reduces public pressure against reforms, in the absence of real job opportunities for older workers it could shift financial support for these workers to other social security pillars. Thus, implementing bluntly this mechanism into pension schemes to make pensions adequate and sustainable would fail to deliver the promised benefits. All pension schemes, regardless of financing method, can be affected both, but in different ways, by economic crises and by ageing.

Therefore, good management and supervision of these schemes and economic policy are necessary to reduce considerably the risks that threaten their sustainability. The Pay-As-You-Go mandatory schemes must continue to play a fundamental role in assuring future pensions and therefore special attention should be devoted to them in order to inverse the tendency of decreased replacement ratios. At a time of population ageing, success in ensuring sustainable public finances will depend on the efforts in the following key areas: supporting quantity and quality of employment, raising productivity and economic performance, improving flexicurity in the labour market, lifelong learning, immigration and the integration of migrants.

 A pension system must be credible and adequate, what implies searching for and implementing new financial resources in order to guarantee an inter-generational balance. Only then will future generations contribute to a pension system, a crucial condition for making pension schemes sustainable. Pension systems must be transparent, and information and statistics on their functioning as well as on all rights of the participants must be available and understandable. Training in financial literacy should become part of school curricula.

Pensions are not a "reward" but rather a form of deferred wage or saving, irrespective of the type of system. Pensioners are a very important socio-economic category and should not be seen as a burden but a key economic player comprising on average 25% of the population, who fuel demand. Adequacy and sustainability of pensions should be considered as a priority both from a macroeconomic and a social perspective. This is a vital issue for the economy, and so the competent authorities should consider looking for sources of funding or ways of complementing it, other than levies on salaries, to help financing the pension systems.

GRTU has worked in close collaboration with Richard Cachia Caruana throughout the years that he was in charge of the Secretariat of Eddie Fenech Adami’s PM’s office, and throughout the whole negotiation process prior to Malta’s accession to the European Union and over the last eight years as Malta’s formidable Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels.

The loss of Richard Cachia Caruana as Malta’s Representative in Brussels is great indeed. Malta has worked well with the EU and Malta’s relative excellent economic and social success story as EU member, when compared to other Mediterranean Member States, is to a large extent due to Richard Cachia Caruana’s performance and efficient representations. It is really a hard act to follow. A great loss for Malta.

Why did you become an entrepreneur?
Because I wanted to become one.
How have you come to choose your line of business?
By trial and error!

Where did you go on your last holiday? Jerez de la Frontera—Spain—the thing I liked most was their winery. What is your earliest memory? Playing in my grandma’s garden. If you could chose to be someone famous who would you be and why? I am happy as I am !