6 October 2026 – Ahead of the MED9 Summit in Split on 7 October, The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry and the Malta Business Bureau (MBB) joined the leading business confederations of the nine Mediterranean EU Member States in a joint letter to the MED9 Heads of State or Government.

The letter comes with a Business MED9 position paper on the Blue Economy. It calls for:

• an ambitious EU budget that safeguards Cohesion policy;
• a Blue Economy strategy that works for islands;
• a Pact for the Mediterranean built with business from the outset.

After sustained engagement by MBB with its Mediterranean counterparts, the final text includes multiple references to islands and recognises tourism as a strategic pillar of the Mediterranean Blue Economy.

The letter urges leaders to agree on an “ambitious and modernised EU budget” and stresses that “Cohesion policy remains essential to ensure that all regions can contribute to, and benefit from, Europe’s competitiveness agenda”. It calls for Cohesion policy to remain a central pillar of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), with resources clearly ring-fenced from other policy areas.

On maritime, the letter states that “EU action should support the modernisation and decarbonisation of maritime value chains in a technology-neutral way, while supporting the competitiveness of islands, coastal regions and ports and avoiding traffic diversion towards neighbouring non-EU ports”. This reflects MBB’s longstanding concern that the maritime EU ETS risks shifting transshipment to North African ports without any genuine reduction in emissions.

The Malta Chamber President William Spiteri Bailey said: “Malta’s voice carries further when it is part of a common Mediterranean position. We now look to Government to carry these messages into the discussions in Split.”

MBB CEO Mario Xuereb said: “The MED9 countries account for around 41% of EU GDP and almost half of its businesses. For us, the decisive point is that islands are no longer a footnote: the final text links maritime decarbonisation directly to the competitiveness of islands.”

MBB also contributed to the drafting of the Business MED9 Blue Economy paper. The final paper recognises that island economies face structurally higher transport costs due to the lack of land connectivity, which “should be taken into account when designing EU transport, port and state-aid policies”. Following MBB’s input, it also urges that the 2026 review of the EU ETS Directive translate its impact on ports into concrete legislative proposals, “to prevent a repetition of the 2021 review, where the impact on ports was recognised but not followed by meaningful legislative action”.

The paper also gives Blue Tourism a place throughout, from skills for nautical services, marine hospitality and cruise operations to port-city integration. It proposes an EU Blue Economy Envoy within the Commission and a “Friends of the Blue Economy” group of MEPs.

MBB’s Brussels-based Nigel Caruana said: “Southern business federations are now coordinating as closely as the North has done for years. We are keen to be a vocal partner of this informal group and hope this paper puts island connectivity and tourism at the centre of the agenda.”

Additional Information on Business MED9

Business MED9 is an informal platform bringing together the leading national business confederations of Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. The MED9 countries account for around 41% of EU27 GDP and 46% of its population, and are home to approximately 48% of EU businesses. The initiative was agreed in Dublin, in the margins of the BusinessEurope Council of Presidents. The letter, dated 29 September 2026, was reported by POLITICO Europe on 5 October 2026.

According to the EU Blue Economy Report 2025, the Blue Economy employs over 4.8 million people and generates €890.6 billion in turnover. The Mediterranean counts 46,000 kilometres of coastline, 10,000 islands (300 inhabited) and over 200 ports and terminals.

Malta, as one of three island Member States alongside Ireland and Cyprus, faces structural economic constraints recognised explicitly in Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which identifies islands among regions “suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps.”

The European Commission published its EU ETS reform proposal on 17 July 2026. It includes an MBB proposal to lower the transshipment activity threshold from 65% to 50%. MBB continues to press for further island safeguards, including a 50% derogation from the maritime ETS surrender obligation for routes serving small islands with no fixed link to the mainland.

The MBB, marking its 30th anniversary this year, will continue to work with the Maltese Government, the European Commission, MEPs and its MED9 and BusinessEurope counterparts. The aim is to ensure that the next MFF, the ETS review and the future EU policies take proportionate account of the structural realities faced by island Member States.

ENDS

The Malta Business Bureau is the EU business advisory organisation of The Malta Chamber and the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA). It is also a partner of the Enterprise Europe Network.