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WE SWEAR TO FREE MALTA FROM THE SLAVERY, COLONIALISM AND DICTATORIAL ILLEGAL EUROPEAN UNION RULE

The European Union ordered that as from 2010 the Maltese and Gozitan people pay it

€182,192 daily stolen from your childrens mouths

The EU: a threat to the Shipyard

Our country’s membership in the European Union has already led to the loss of hundreds of jobs of Maltese workers and employees.

In the future the treath for jobs is going to increase in our country, especially for the Shipyard workers and employees.

The cause of all this is the Shipyards agreement that was made between the Maltese Government and the Union, signed in Athens in April 2003, and which the Maltese Parliament approved when on 6 July 2005, voted unanimously in favour of the European Constitutional Treaty, which included our country’s Membership Treaty.

The agreement that the Maltese Government made with the EU on the Maltese Shipyards has already caused the closure of the Malta Shipbuilding at Marsa and the removal from employment of hundreds of workers and employees both from the Marsa Shipyard as well as from the Bormla Shipyard.

The conditions of this agreement are very severe, of great damage to our country, and may lead to the closure of the Bormla Shipyard and the termination of employment of hundreds of its workers and employees at the end of 2008 (in two years time).

As had happened in other matters that Malta agreed about with the European Union, full information about what was agreed about the shipyards in Malta was not given to the Maltese public prior to the 2003 referendum.

The Maltese and Gozitans were not given the facility to examine the agreement and consider its effects.

It will be good that what could not have been done prior to the referendum, we do it now before it will be too late, and not wait until the end of 2008 without deciding that we are not ready to submit to that agreement that can cause the closure of the Bormla Shipyard.

We will do this by examining the words of the agreement and comment about them.

The Malta Shipyards agreement is found on six pages, 3,256 to 3,270 of the Membership Agreement of our country with the European Union, and starts by mentioning the Union rules about competition.

This means that the Union considered that our shipyards compete with Union shipyards, and that the Union is not ready to let our shipyards be given benefits and aid that gives them an advantage on the Union shipyards.

The Membership Agreement binds Malta to implement the shipyards restructuring on the basis of a restructuring plan that is said to have the aim of acquiring total viability (that is there will be no losses) not later than the restructuring period, according to the conditions made by the EU.

The restucturing period is between 2002 and the end of 2008, that means that Malta was bound with that agreement for two years prior to becoming a member in the Union on 1 May 2004.

The agreement fixes the maximum total amount of financial aid that Malta can give for the shipyards restructurng in the eight-year period.

It specifies the amount of aid for capital inevstment, the amount of training grants and other aid related to the financial costs of grants for training and capital investment, the amount of aid for working capital, the amount of aid that is to be paid for social costs, that is of those workers who lose their employment, and the amount of debt that can be written off.

There is written in the agreement that the total amount of aid mentioned in the restructuring plan shall be given only once and that no other aid shall be given after 31 December 2008.

It is expressly stated in the agreement that any aid that is granted in breach of the conditions of the agreement shall have to be paid back.

But the agreement provides that if the shipyards viability cannot be obtained because of exceptional circumstances that could not be foreseen when the restructuring plan was made the European Commission may review the conditions according to Union procedure.

This with the proviso that prior to the initiation of the revision procedures, the European Union shall consider fully the views of the member states (who naturally have shipyards that compete with the Maltese shipyard) on whether or not exceptional conditions exist.

Whatever the amount of exceptional circumstances, the amount fixed for the total aid cannot be exceeded under any circumstances.

The agreed shipyards restructuring plan reduces the number of productive workers and employees to 1410 and limits the volume of work that can be done in the shipyards for ship repair, ship building and ship conversion to two million and four hundred thousand manhours every year.

In this total of manhours of work that can be done is included the manhours of work that are worked by foreign workers that are brought to work in our shipyard.

The agreement continues to say that the number of manhours for ship repair and ship conversion cannot exceed 2,035,000 per year for each of ten years between 2003 to the end of 2011.

In the case of ship building, the maximum production cannot exceed 10,000 compensated gross tons per year.

The EU was not happy to make these limitations on the amount of aid that can be given to the Maltese shipyards, on the number of workers and employees that can work in the Shipyard, and on the total volume of work that can be done every year in the shipyard.

It also bound our country to close Dock No. 1 for ship building for at least 10 years till the end of 2011.

And it also bound us that if this dock is used for other activities, these should be independent from the Shipyard and cannot be connected with the construction, or conversion, or repair of ships.

The EU prohibition of the use of the Bormla Shipyard docks and the denial for the Shipyard from any income that it could get from other activities that it could have made in it, are not justified and do nothing else but damage to the Shipyard.

The EU is not justified to impose the agreement conditions about the shipyards that can lead to the closure of the Shipyard and the termination of the employment of its workers and employees.

The Union has no right to itself decide how many people work in the Shipyard and how much work it does.

It is the Maltese people who have the right to decide what will happen in the Shipyard after 31 December 2008 in the interests of the country and not to observe the Union competition regulations.

Our country needs training in trades that only the Shipyard can give to our youths.

We have to be ready to do everything so that the Shipyard shall not close, whatever the EU says.

Earlier this week a letter was published in a local English newspaper written by Eddy Privitera about the balance sheet between Malta and the European Union.

The letter is very informative and we will do well to translate it into Maltese for the benefits of the readers of this page.

“Mr Morris D. Walker from Hampshire, UK, in his letter of 1 December, congratulated the Maltese Government for the grant of 855 million Ewros by the European Union. It is not known whether Mr Walker knows that that grant is for seven years. He does not mention for how many years it was given.”

“ I wish to ask Mr Walker whether he knows how much the Maltese Government shall have to pay to the Union for the same seven years from 2007 to 2013?”

“Does he know what is the amount that the Central Bank of Malta is going to lose each year after the adoption of the Ewro on 1 January 2008?”

“Does he know how many millions the Union used to pay in subsidies that we enjoyed on food that we used to buy from the Union countries when we were still an independent country outside the Union?”

“Does he know how many millions did the Government get from customs duties on items bought from countries outside the Union which duties will now go to the Union?”

“Does he know how many millions did the Maltese Government collect from levies on items imported from the Union countries, when those items used to compete with similar objects made in Malta?”

“Does he know how many millions the importers in Malta are having to pay in tariffs on essential food items such as sugar (on which they are now paying three times what they used to pay prior to our membership in the Union), meat, rice, cereals, etc?”

Does Mr Walker have any idea how much Union membership is costing us because of which we had to establish and operate a great number of directorates, authorities, embassies etc. the greater part of which were established because our country became a member in the Union?”

“Does he know how much subsidies the Maltese Government is having to pay in agricultural subsidies that were not needed prior to our membership in the Union?”

“CNI, that used to and shall continue to make its voice heard, has long been challenging the Maltese Government to tell the whole truth about these things by giving detailed information that Malta’s membership in the Union is costing us every year, and not only speak about how much the Union is giving us.”

“But up till now the Governmnent has remained totally silent and Mr Walker was very happy for the Union grant. Perhaps he can now give us the information that we have long been asking for from the Government.”

“Mr Walker mentioned the two million Ewros that Malta is going to receive from Switzerland, which is not a Union member, but did not mention the two million Ewros that Malta is having to pay each year to the United Kingdom as part of the rebate the the United Kingdom has a right to receive from the European Union.”

“Mr Walker probably will be interested to learn that Malta used to receive the sum of Lm14 million each year from the British Government without having to pay anything back to the British Government.”

“Those Lm14 million that the Maltese Government had agreed to in 1972 for a 7-year period today cost at least Lm84 million each year. Mr Walker can calculate this, and their equivalent in Ewros. The Ewro rate of exchange is 42.93 Maltese cents.”

WE WANT INDEPENDENCE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION

If yes, help CNI in its work so that the majority of the people would want to get rid of European Union rule.

No.1 Dock

The accounts between Malta and the EU