More than any other time since the last world war, the budget debate has been a watershed for the people of these islands. Having achieved independence and switched from a fortress to a market economy, the Maltese people made an irrevocable commitment. Out of regard for national dignity, they were prepared to run the risk of being mismanaged by their countrymen rather than being governed, efficiently or otherwise, by alien rulers.

That commitment meant that the Maltese people had to earn their keep in freedom. A process of industrialisation and economic diversification was set in train and Malta’s survival henceforth depended on Malta’s ability to earn the wherewithal for its people.

Overall picture

There has been progress as well as setbacks On balance, the overall result was, initially, on the plus side, making it possible for wage levels to be sustained and improved, for a social services fabric to be gradually weaved, for the economic infrastructure to be upgraded and for the quality of life of the average citizen to be substantially improved. An upwardly mobile middle class came into being.

Came l995 and cracks began to appear in the edifice sustained by public expenditure. The government’s deficit began to snowball, threatening to run out of control. It developed into an unsustainable structural deficit that began to feed on itself and assumed proportions which were both monstrous and unprecedented.

Finance Minister John Dalli forecast a deficit in the region of Lm176 million in 1996 compared to Lm110 in the preceding year. The heady money no problem mood was prevailing.

High point

This marked a high point of a deliberate and sustained spend-and-borrow policy.

Writing in another section of the Press at that time (The Times, 27 November 1998) I pointed out: “The challenge faced by the Minister of Finance is awesome. Ever since the war, Malta did not have to overcome a challenge of this magnitude. Survival depends on an all-out national resolve to stand four-square and bite the bullet. Otherwise, the consequences could be ominous with the potential of unpleasant economic and social connotations.

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and a phased solution of the deficit problem is the urgent concern of all. It is in this context that consensus between the social partners is of the essence.

“Consensus implies a measure of give and take, and the onset of a rapidly changing technological society adds force to the argument that give-and-take is a prerequisite if the social partners and the political class are to work hand-in-hand, first to steer the public financial sector out of the shadow of the structural deficit, and then to enable the Maltese economy to hold its place in a globalised and ruthlessly competitive market. This is the watershed Malta is in. Deep down, our freedom is as much in play as our bread and butter.

“We must roll back government and reduce it to a more manageable size. If it is generally agreed that the powers and size of government have increased, are increasing and ought to be reduced, we, the electorate, are to blame. Every so many years, we sit back and listen while our prospective rulers make promises which every sensible man knows they will not be able to keep.”

Everybody may have listened, but nobody cared. Maltese taxpayers have been burdened ever since by deficit budgets – many of them to sustain a feel-good euphoria, in anticipation of the EU accession referendum.

Basic criteria

When politicians fail to fulfil their promises and fly in the face of prudence, the electorate tends to become disillusioned with the democratic process. The government then turns round and says that it is up to us, the people, to put things right. This we know to be true, but we are then apt to listen to the siren songs of politicians who promise Utopia by Act of Parliament.

An enlightened public opinion has a role to play in a democracy that finds itself in a situation like the one which prevails today in these islands. Its role is to sober up and shake up the political establishment

The criteria of a good political establishment are that it should distribute power in responsible hands; that it should be open to the widest variety of legitimate, but not corrupt, influences; that it should attract people to the public service for a wide variety of motives and not just from lust for power or gain; that it should be flexible and capable of reform without those sudden leaps and starts which break the habits and sense of security on which social cohesion depends; that it should be seemly and bent on satisfying the people’s sensitivities in a way that will not drive them to seek the glamour and excitement of politics in “revolutionary” quarters; that it does not create a hotbed for doubtful “isms”; and that it should be capable of effective, but not arbitrary, rule.

Hindsight

It emerges that, with or without hindsight, the government fell short of these criteria. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Malta’s mountainous debt and its punishing servicing costs, and the debility of the economy notwithstanding mounting taxation, corroborate the argument more eloquently than journalistic commentaries and the spin of politicians.

In the light of all the above, the coming watershed months will be particularly sensitive.

It may well be that the fast developing situation may trigger defections and lead to new alignments in the electoral scenario. This could, in turn, transform the political landscape and give a new lease of life to the democratic process.

If, on the other hand developments turn sour, and if the political establishment fails in winning the support of public opinion, adventurers of all description will be tempted to crawl out of the woodwork to tell us that the freedom we enjoy is a device to safeguard vested interests and the upholders of the status quo. They will claim that, despite free votes, free speech and free trade unions, the people are not really free, because their livelihood is controlled and their opinions are formed by a privileged clique capable of manipulating and exploiting society. It has happened before.

Deep down, it is our survival in freedom that is at issue. It calls for a national sense of purpose and hard work, for prudence and self-restraint, for an inclusive government that cuts its coat according to its cloth.

Above all, Malta is sorely in need of a government that is free from the arrogance of power, and ready to learn from its mistakes.

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