EU Affairs
Malta celebrates Europe Day
By Giselle Borg Olivier
May 9, 2006, 18:28

In Malta, various activities took place in Valletta with the participation of primary and secondary school children from 24 schools around Malta and Gozo, as well as Café Europe which involved literary works.

Children were encouraged to take part in Europe Day in all member states whereby they presented their ideas about what initiatives they feel the EU should take and where they would like to see the EU in the future. These ideas will then be presented to the European Commission as a foundation for Europe developing with the contribution its citizens. The conference, which will bring together some 450 students, brings to a close three months of activities and preparation for this year's Spring Day in Europe.

Meanwhile, Café Europe was organised in Pjazza Regina where literary works by local writers were read out. This happened in 27 other countries of the EU. Ġorġ Mallia read from his book, whilst Rita Borg read out one of her poems.

Europe Day celebrations ended in Pjazza San Ġorġ, where the school children raised the flags of all EU countries. The Police Force Band accompanied this gesture with a rendition of ‘Ode to Joy’ which is the anthem of the EU.

Present for these celebrations were the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Frendo, Minister for Tourism, Francis Zammit Dimech, Head of Representation of the European Commission in Malta, Joanna Drake, Austrian Ambassador Elisabeth Kehrer and MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa.

In Brussels, 29 national parliaments and the European Parliament will be meeting to debate questions of concern about the future of the EU . The two-day parliamentary forum will be one of the first debates on the future of Europe at an EU institutional level. It has been jointly organised by the Austrian and European Parliaments. Mr. Clyde Puli and Mr. George Vella will be attending this forum.

Participants will consider four questions:
- The EU in the world and the borders of the Union.
- Globalisation and the European social and economic model
- What are the prospects for the area of freedom, security and justice?
- The future financial resources of the EU.

Communication and dialogue is a priority for the EP in this process. Therefore in order to stimulate debate between the electorate and the elected and bring citizens closer to the EU, the Parliament is also running a series of ‘Citizens' Forum’ at local level.

The EP feel that the need to involve all European citizens in the process of building Europe's future is crucial and MEPs want to use the current period of reflection to broaden the public debate about the future of European integration, especially on the eve of the European Council in June.

This period of reflection and dialogue was launched after the Netherlands and France voted against the constitution last year and will be used by EU leaders in deciding on future action.

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