Malta celebrates 18 years of EU membership
May Day is celebrated around the world and since the end of the 19th century it has marked the historical struggles and achievements of the workers and the movements of the workers. However, in Malta, the public holiday also marks the country’s historic membership in the EU which was officially sealed on 1 May 2004.
“18 years ago, I was standing in Valletta (with what I felt like the whole country) looking at the sea in our Grand Harbor as we counted the minutes and seconds to Malta together with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania. , Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia have joined the European Union as Member States, “Roberta Metsola wrote on Sunday.
In a post on Facebook, the President of the European Parliament recalled the day that Malta celebrated its membership of the EU 18 years ago.
“I will never forget that great crowd filled with an understanding of unbridled possibility, hope and belief in the future. Feeling we have ‘Run out of gas’ emotionally, our sense of accomplishment, our feelings of relief — feelings shared by millions across Europe, ”she wrote.
Metsola – the first Maltese to hold one of the highest positions in the EU – added that with the ongoing war in Ukraine and the conclusion of the Conference on the Future of Europe “it is that spirit, that the sense of purpose, of enthusiasm, of unity of purpose, that I want our European project to be recaptured. ”
Hinting at higher spending in the EU, Metsola wrote “a generation above, people in Ukraine, in countries in the Western Balkans, in Moldova and Georgia are looking at Europe, with same sense of hope of a common purpose. I want people to believe how we did it – because we knew then, as we know now, that the future is Europe. “