Airport and elected assembly for Gozo?

An airport in Gozo would be one way of asserting regional autonomy, as Ryan Mercieca’s research on small island regions shows.
Every island state Mr Mercieca has analysed with similar characteristics to Malta’s shows that autonomy for secondary islands is strengthened through international accessibility by means of an airport.
“None of the island states I have reviewed have a permanent link between the main and secondary islands, but all have a sea ferry service and an airport,” he said.
He skirted the environmental controversy this would spark when we met in the aftermath of Gozo Minister Anton Refalo’s call last month for a bipartisan approach to a more autonomous Gozo.
But Mr Mercieca believes that any decision to have an airport in Gozo should be left to the Gozitans. This would be one aspect of decision making that regional autonomy could bring about, he added.

Regional autonomy is the subject of Mr Mercieca’s research for his doctoral thesis, Federalism and regionalism of islands and small states in the 21st century, under the tutorship of sociology professor Godfrey Baldacchino.
He carried out a comparative analysis of regional autonomy across island states with...