Malta and the EU – looking towards the future (part 3)

This is the last of three articles on the path ahead taken from a recent talk by Former EU Commissioner, Dr Joe Borg, at “Il-Ħaġar”, Gozo on May 3.

Read the first here.
Read the second here.

In this final part of his talk Dr Borg continues looking at the future of the EU but with a special focus on defence and reform.

On Defence, he said that the European Commission stresses that anew era for European Defence is a must.

Bringing the European Defence Union to life

We suffer from a chronic underinvestment – combined EU spending on defence over the last 20 years increased by 20%. Russia’s defence spending increased by 250% and China’s by 600%. At the same time our spending is too disjointed and disparate – it is not European enough. The defence budgets for the 27 Member States when taken together are slightly more than one third of that of the United States and not much more than that of China. And most of the money spent for rearmament by the EU does not remain within the EU but goes out of the EU and, in particular, to the USA.

With a view to this:

A new Commissioner for Defence has been appointed (Andrius Kubilius – from Lithuania)
A White paper on the future of European Defence has just been issued
Europe needs to spend more, spend better, spend together, especially since the vast majority of defence acquisitions by Member States are still made from outside Europe. The EU will therefore build up the European Defence Fund to invest in high-end defence capabilities. The budget of the fund is €8 billion for 2021 – 2027 + €1.5 billion increase in the 2024 mid-term review. This should be very significantly increased post 2027, possibly by €700 billion over the next decade. Apart from all this, more recently urgent discussions began being conducted on re-arming Europe for its own defence in the very short term because of what is taking place with regard to the Ukraine. In the beginning of March of this year the Commission came up with the Re-arm Europe Plan involving very significant increases in Member States’ spending on defence by an estimated € 800 billion over a period of four years; € 650 billion of which by way of increase in the budgets of the Member States and € 150 billion by way of loans made available to Member States. This was taken on board unanimously (except for Hungary) by the emergency European Council just days after the Commission came up with the Plan (although the Maltese Prime Minister was reported as saying after the meeting that “Malta will not pay for, or borrow money, to buy weapons of war”.

As a result of such increases of funds for defence the EU will be able to:

Reinforce the European Defence Industry Programme and incentivise common procurement.

Furthermore:

A true Single Market for defence products and services will be created.
Resources will be pooled together and common threats will be averted by means of flagship European Defence Union Projects of common European interest starting with a European Air Shield and cyber defence.

And how does Malta fit with this?

The question of bringing to life a European Defence Union opens up a whole Pandora’s box with Malta’s Neutrality right at the middle, Dr Borg maintained. And so, he said, before considering specifics we must decide on the future of our own Neutral status. We can either adopt a stand of opting out of any discussions on a Defence Union which appears to be the starting position adopted by the Maltese Government since the launch of the Commission plan just mentioned; or we can take part in discussions and keep an open mind on how we can be part of a Defence Union with certain safeguards and caveats so as to salvage our Neutrality within the meaning it has in today’s realities; or else we can open a debate on our own Neutrality with a view to deciding on whether it is time to abandon our Neutrality and go for a fully-fledged participation in a future European Defence Union.

With what is happening, the main question is not whether a European Defence Union will materialise? It is quite certain that it will come about. The question for Malta is how to countenance Neutrality within the framework of a European Defence Union and Malta may need to address this sooner rather than later since otherwise Malta will be left out of discussions altogether.

Dr Borg asked: Can we remain sitting on the fence without being irrevocably left out? And

Can we stay out and yet expect full protection and assistance in case we need it?

On reform

The European Commission asserts, Dr Borg said, that an ambitious reform agenda for Europe is necessary because reforms will become essential with enlargement.

Such an agenda is required to ensure the proper functioning of a larger Union and so a Treaty change to improve our Union is therefore necessary, the Commission insists.

The EU must widen as it deepens. And so:

Pre-enlargement policy reviews are being finalised;
Proposals to enhance Europe’s capacity to act will be put forward –new formats and decision-making processes, including for a larger Union, will have to be looked into; and
Cooperation and dialogue between the European Commission and the European Parliament will be strengthened.

And again, for Malta?

It is true that with further enlargement reform becomes essential.

It is, however, also true that reform of the Institutions to accommodate enlargement can translate into a weakening of the relative strength of the smaller Member States. We need to engage fully in these discussions when they materialise with a view to a fair and balanced outcome.

We need to examine carefully and from day one what proposals are put forward regarding any new formats and decision-making processes both with regard to questions of composition and to the modus operandi.

As regards the European Institutions as we know them today, within the European Commission, each Member State should retain its own Commissioner or, to avoid the risk of having too many Commissioners and not as many decent portfolios to hand over (in a sense we are already there today), the right to a Commissioner should be distributed between the Member States in an egalitarian way without any differentiation (for example, every Member State without distinction should have its own Commissioner two times out of every three times).The same goes for the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Auditors.

As regards the European Parliament, the minimum number of members of Parliament for each Member State should be six (certainly not less than five).

With regard to the Council of Ministers, each Member State will be represented in all Council of Ministers formations (but not when it comes to any area from which one may opt out like in that of the European Defence Union in Malta’s case if we keep out of it) and any discussions on the manner of redistribution / reapportionment of voting rights have to be followed vary carefully both with regard to the retention or otherwise of veto rights and with regard to remaining relevant for the adoption of a qualified majority or for a blocking minority. Discussions on the question of power sharing or of who decides on what between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament need to be looked into closely as they can have a significant bearing on the powers of individual Member States within the EU’s decision-making processes.

Reform is a very delicate matter which we cannot avoid and which we will have to tackle head on.

In conclusion

Dr Borg summed up as follows:

We can continue to reap the economic, social and environmental benefits offered by Membership as we have been doing so far, as long as we plan ahead carefully, implement properly and enforce strongly what we implement.

We must resist the dangers of populist politics, information manipulation and deep fakes which attack the very foundations on which the European Union was built and which will severely weaken the EU and us.

We need to decide on the very delicate issue of defence – can we / should we opt out of a defence union?

We need to follow closely and engage on all aspects relating to security and in particular relating to migration.

We have to consider carefully the institutional reforms that will need to come about with enlargement and adopt a position on them at an early stage in discussions.

Dr Borg gave his audience this parting shot: