Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant has said that in the coming years action will be needed to defend Europe’s social model. “If there was one thing that was distinctive about Europe this was that there had emerged a consensus from right and left about the need for the state to guarantee the welfare of citizens in the fields of health, education, social security and pensions, while allowing full space for private enterprise to generate wealth.”

Alfred Sant, who will be contesting the EP elections in May, was replying to questions by journalist Antoinette Falzon and members of the public in a forum about EU-Malta Affairs at the Mscala Labour Party Club.

He added, that this model has been partly undermined in many European countries in the wake of the Eurozone crisis. “A further complication has been caused by the slowing down of European economies during the last ten years or so. However if the social model is discarded, more and more people will end up disillusioned with the EU and this can only benefit extremists.”

“European socialists would be in the forefront of initiatives to ensure that the social model remained part of the major policies that are being drafted. From Malta, attention needed to be kept on the need to retain our system to adjust wage levels to the cost of living, and to preserve and improve our pension system,” Alfred Sant concluded.

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