The core of the pre-electoral debate is both parties’ plans for the economy because this is where all our futures lie. This is the crucial issue of the election, now that there is no EU accession as an issue or the big issues regarding justice, democracy and freedom of the 1970s and 1980s. Nor is the real issue who shall lead us in the coming years but rather what kind of future do we feel we ought to have. And also, which electoral programme stands the best chance of delivering.

The current spat on Labour’s four key proposals – badly handled though it is, with barely understandable press releases from one side and the other, with more than permissible badmouthing of each other and of anyone who tries to ask for an explanation – is not just one of the many skirmishes of an election campaign but rather the central issue.

Now in the EU, and soon also in the eurozone, the small Maltese economy can no longer hide behind the high, thick walls of protectionism, import substitution and price orders. Its manufacturing base had to change and restructure to face up to global competition. Malta has moved upwards in the quality stakes in what it does, from basic textile operations to complex financial services levels and all the intervening stages. It has had to cope with public deficit and public debt mountains and, regarding the deficit and also the inflation rates at least, it has done so well as to be admitted to euroland. And a resilient economy has continued to absorb those who found themselves out of a job due to restructuring.

Yet this is only half the picture: far more needs to be done to get the Maltese economy shipshape for it to take on whatever waves come from the globalised world. Both the IMF and ECB reports were extremely clear on this when Malta was admitted to the eurozone, but neither the government nor the Opposition seem to have heard. There is an urgency to cut down on the government’s burden on the economy. The recent competitiveness stakes have shown that businesses in Malta face an overwhelming burden of government-induced and red tape. Yet there was no mention of this in either the government’s Budget speech or in the Opposition’s four proposals.

Surrounded by an ocean of spin aimed to portray the Budget as the best Budget ever to be announced, we were the only ones to warn that it is an expansionary, inflation-generating economic programme in the best Socialist tradition. If, as widely reported, the polls have shown the population to be quite cool about this much-hyped Budget, serves the government right, for it is nothing to write home about.

Labour’s four proposals have departed from one of the most signal of Labour’s contributions, historically, to the Maltese economy and, still hurt by taunts about its 1980s austerity, has now embraced the spend, spend, spend mentality made famous by Eddie Fenech Adami post 1987. Only now there is no cash pile such as Eddie found then.

It’s amazing how things come round: Labour used to deride Eddie for his infamous Lm10 million here or there quote, now it replies to tables which state its proposals would cost the country Lm115 million by removing one digit and claims its proposals cost ‘just’ Lm15 million. One can only wish Labour to be elected and watch it squirm as the costs mount.

But that’s not the point and the government is, again, losing the plot here. The main issue is what kind of economic policy will lead to growth and to sustainable growth rather than a get rich quick, borrow today what you will not have tomorrow policy. It is true that Malta’s growth pattern over the past few years was nothing to sing about – even though the fasting regime the country was put on to make it through the euro door imposed an austerity of its own which improved the growth pattern, compared to years, not so long ago, when Malta went into recession while the other EU hopefuls and the EU itself were on small growth patterns. That’s ECB discipline, if one could so describe it.

Labour’s proposal on the energy surcharge encourage waste, its proposal on the weekend feasts would again put Malta at the top of the EU stakes where we would rather not be: the country with the most public holidays. Its proposal to remove income tax on overtime could provoke tax evasion on a large scale when it could reach its aim by just proposing further cuts in basic income tax, something this government has been proclaiming for two successive budgets, with no appreciable results. And its proposal on first-time home buyers, though it requires further explanation, has to be looked at within the context of a sorely-needed national debate on the whole construction industry for, on its own, it can prove to be destabilizing.

This is internal political debate, but Malta is now no longer on its own: it is part of the eurozone and it is bound by the ECB rules. The ECB, and the Central Bank of Malta not just as an ECB member but also statutorily, are fully independent. All the more reason then for them to speak out in non-political terms on any proposals that could lead Malta to defect on its ECB and euro commitments.