One year on, what has Maltas membership of the eurozone meant for the country?
It has meant a lot, much more than we expected in such a short space of time. There was a general consensus in the country that the euro was good for us and surveys consistently showed a very large majority were in favour of Malta adopting the euro. It has brought stability, which is something we perhaps took for granted. One year on, with the financial crisis around us, everyone agrees that, to use the Governor’s words, “God forbid if we hadn’t joined the euro”. I just don’t know how we would have handled such a crisis without significant costs to everyone in terms of the interest rates that would have had to be applied by the Central Bank to safeguard the reserves of the country. In terms of business sentiment and Malta’s investment attractiveness Malta’s profile has increased significantly. When we talk to investors the euro is always one of the factors mentioned as attracting them to Malta. The fact that the country has implemented a steady convergence programme gives them more cer
