Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant said that EU policies that encourage public and private investment need to be taken on board and implemented vigorously. Other policies that serve to inhibit investment prospects, especially in the private sector because of Malta’s particular conditions, need to be held in check.

The MEP Candidate said that the Labour administration has fully grasped the extent of the investment challenge and its policies to promote investment on all fronts merit support, both locally and at European level.

Alfred Sant, who will contest the 24 May EP elections, was participating in a discussion programme on One TV about business prospects in Malta.

Sant said that in Malta as well as in the European Union, the key to further progress is new investment, both public and private. Sant stated that right across the EU at present the need is for further new investment, both in traditional industries and in top notch services.

He added that “this is necessary not just to generate economic growth in the future and to enhance the competitiveness of national economies, but also to protect the European social model. For in recent years, the improvement of competitiveness has become too linked in Europe to a reduction of social protection for workers and to a dilution of the benefits afforded by the welfare state. This is because austerity policies have led to internal devaluation that in turn amount to an erosion of the social model.”

“Unless new investment is promoted in a significant way, this vicious circle will persist and will lead to huge political problems as many European workers and pensioners will quite rightly, feel that austerity policies are not only counterproductive but they also against their interests.”

With such policies, they will be having to pay the costs of austerity without reaping any benefits, stressed Alfred Sant.

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