Malta Business Bureau calls for tangible solutions as EU Commission

The European Commission has published the EU Strategy for Islands, the first official EU communication to formally recognise the structural challenges faced by EU islands, including island states such as Malta. The strategy is organised around four thematic pillars: connectivity and economic development; the energy transition and decarbonisation; community wellbeing and quality of life; and preparedness for security threats and crises.

It proposes actions to better tailor EU policies to islands' specific circumstances and commits to launching an in-depth analysis of the cost of insularity and the best-practice measures available to address it. The Malta Business Bureau (MBB), which is marking its 30th anniversary this year, welcomed the strategy as an important step but called for more tangible European solutions.

CEO Mario Xuereb said the organisation had pushed hard to secure the recognition now reflected in the document. "We now call upon other stakeholders, MEPs and the national government to step up efforts to ensure that, in the spirit of the island strategy published today, any new legislative proposals by the European Commission take account of the strategy, and that these are applied equally to island states and islands," he said.

The strategy acknowledges that existing EU legislation — specifically the Emissions Trading System (ETS) — creates obstacles to island connectivity, but proposes no specific corrective measures within the document itself. MBB has proposed a 50% derogation for the maritime ETS and a 50% free allocation for island airports as its own amendments to address the gap.

Nigel Caruana, the MBB's Brussels-based representative, framed the strategy primarily as a lobbying instrument. "With this text, Maltese, and other island stakeholders will have a concrete tool in their arsenal for lobbying legislative changes where they really matter, such as in the upcoming ETS review, the next Multiannual Financial Framework, and state aid rules. That is where we will be testing the strategy's political commitments," he said.

Maltese MEP Thomas Bajada also welcomed the adoption of both the EU Strategy for Islands and the accompanying EU Strategy for Coastal Communities. He called for adequate EU funding frameworks for islands, stronger connectivity provisions, measures to address housing pressures, support for the energy transition, and specific recognition of double insularity — pointing to Gozo as a case in point.

"The success of this Strategy will ultimately depend not on the challenges it identifies, but on the solutions it delivers," he said. Bajada expressed his readiness to engage across the European Commission, the European Parliament, Member States, and island communities to push those demands forward. The strategy's publication draws on Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which classifies islands as territories burdened by severe and permanent geographical or demographic disadvantages.

Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta are the three EU Member States that are themselves island nations.