Vision 2050: An admirable initiative but excuse our cynicism

Government’s plan to draw up an economic vision for the next 25 years is admirable if it hones in on areas where national consensus can be reached.

There are several areas of public policy where it would be beneficial to have continuity in principle, even if governments along the way may adapt to changing circumstances.

Any hope of building a metro as an alternative to road transport requires a long-term vision to be in place because such a massive financial and infrastructural undertaking will span over several legislatures. Major investments in the energy sector that prioritise decarbonisation and ensure a level of strategic autonomy would benefit immensely from a long-term plan. Attempts to ensure future pensioners can receive adequate incomes by supplementing their two-thirds pension with an occupational pension require broad agreement and peace of mind that investments will be maintained over the long term.

Within this context, an exercise that tries to understand today’s realities, tomorrow’s challenges and how society will evolve, while proposing a way forward, is more than welcome.

Government’s latest attempt to prepare a long-term plan dubbed Vision 2050 will require not only input from the social partners but also their support for key measures. But if this is intended to be a serious attempt, government must come clean on a similar effort it undertook only three years ago.

In the summer of 2021, government had launched what it called Malta’s Economic Vision 2021-2031 with the intention of fostering economic growth that creates a better quality of life. Piloted by Economy Minister Silvio Schembri and trumpeted by Prime Minister Robert Abela, the 2031 vision was underpinned by the same mantra as that being bandied about now for Vision 2050 - improving the quality of life.

At the time, the government had even organised a series of consultation meetings with the social partners and interested stakeholders. With six more years to go for the first vision document to be fully realised it remains unclear whether any of the aims laid out back then were achieved.

Within this context, Opposition finance spokesperson Graham Bencini was right to question Finance Minister Clyde Caruana on TVM’s Popolin last Wednesday about government’s incoherent approach.

Indeed, what happened to Vision 2021-2031? Why is government embarking on a new, more ambitious exercise when it is unclear whether the goals of the first exercise have been achieved? Was it just an exercise in marketing to create a feel-good environment during the doldrums of the COVID period? Is Robert Abela’s administration inching closer to the Gonzi administrations when plans were announced, only to be followed up by more plans and strategy documents and very little by way of meaningful execution?

On Popolin, Caruana took the criticism in his stride and even suggested that his view that Malta’s economic model must slowly transition to a high-value economy was not always shared by everyone in government. The minister’s explanation was an acknowledgement that within the government not everyone was appreciating the difficulties created by the country’s rapid economic expansion after 2013. Caruana, himself an architect of the model that came to rely on the importation of foreign labour, reiterates the same sentiment in today’s interview with MaltaToday. At least there is some honesty in his words.

But this leader still has to be convinced that Robert Abela’s administration endured a Damascene moment after the June European election, prompting it to prioritise quality over quantity and focus on long-term planning.

Unfortunately, the Villa Rosa debacle suggests otherwise. At a time when the government introduced the skills pass to filter out unskilled foreign employees from the tourism industry to focus on quality and in turn restrict labour supply, it acted to appease a developer, who wants to erect three hotels – three quality hotels we have been told in a bid to sugar the pill.

But irrespective of the planning issues at stake and the very suspect way Cabinet agreed to kick off a review process of the Villa Rosa local plan, the messaging was simply contradictory.

It is instances like these that cast doubt on the true intentions behind grand plans such as Vision 2050. Is government really committed to an honest process that lays out the challenges and embraces the solutions around which consensus can be built?

Writing in MaltaToday, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri insists government has the political will to ensure Maltese citizens “enjoy a high quality of life, with access to education, healthcare, and opportunities for cultural enrichment”.

A cynical electorate may not give too much thought to these lofty ideals unless they translate into concrete solutions to address persistent problems that could only get worse in the future.

As for us, we stand to be convinced that Vision 2050 is the real deal. Excuse our cynicism but only time will tell whether we are wrong.