Before proceeding to write my initial thoughts in my first regular article on this newspaper, I would like to heartily thank all the voters who believed in me and honoured me with their vote on 8 March.

The Maltese voters have expressed their right to vote to judge us for the previous five years. The electorate opted to trust the Nationalist Party for the third consecutive time, albeit with a slimmer majority. Of course, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt through this result and we must understand the message that the electorate wanted to convene. It is up to the political parties and to us involved in politics to analyse the results and decipher trends and cycles.

The Maltese Parliament will convene in May. The honeymoon period is already over. We are already geared up to work hard to deliver the proposals disclosed in the electoral programme. We are already meeting our constituents and planning ahead. We are already thinking of how to win the next general election.

We should be in for an interesting and productive five years. There is a lot of work to be done, and as the PM mentioned various times during the campaign, we will roll up our sleeves and work hard to strive for results. We need to build upon the momentum that was gained over the years.

Each legislature had its priorities and needed to focus on particular issues and priorities. We all have our wish lists and as everything in life we constantly need to prioritise and make decisions.

So, in 1987, the government’s priority was to rebuild the local economy from stagnation, to foster the seeds of democracy and to start to lead the country towards Europe Union. In fact Malta formally applied to join the EU (European Community at the time) during this legislature.

Subsequently, in 1992, once the democratic foundations were strengthened, the government embarked on a series of reforms. Fiscal reforms were planned and implemented. Institutional reforms were initialised. Today we are still bearing the fruit of decisions taken during that legislature. One of the most successful decisions of that period was the setting up of the framework for the financial sector. Today, this sector is one of the fastest-growing pillars of our economy and its share of the GDP is constantly growing.

Then, in 1996, as we all know this smooth momentum was unexpectedly interrupted and we were all in for a tough time. The Labour Party was not prepared to govern, even though they had spent nine years in opposition. What we took for granted in the previous years suddenly started to drift away and people had a rude awakening. Labour froze Malta’s application to join the EU, while our competitors in the Mediterranean and Central Europe continued to progress ahead in their quest towards EU membership. We were very close to being left out in the dark.

To make matters worse, Labour started to experiment with our finances and tried to dismantle the fiscal reforms which were carefully implemented in previous years. They tried to replace VAT, a widely-used tax system with an enigmatic system created overnight. We all remember the farcical press conferences where the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and their consultant tried to explain the unexplainable to the bewildered traders and the general public. Today we can safely say that thankfully the fiasco was limited to just 22 months, even though we had to pay a dear price for the shocking interruption.

In 1998 the electorate opted for another PN government, which started to make up for the lost ground of the previous two years. This time the main aim was to redirect Malta towards Europe and to restructure the local economy in order to gear it for competition within Europe and within a globalised world. This legislature ended with a triumphant referendum campaign following a successful joint effort with civil society.

Since the Labour Party did not endorse the referendum result, the Maltese electorate reconfirmed their message through another general election. EU membership became reality, and we needed to consolidate our position within this new reality. Certain tough and painful decisions were taken. We knew that we could make a success out of EU membership and we aimed to use this competitive advantage as much as possible. In order to be one step ahead of our competitors, our next target was the adoption of the euro as our currency. This goal was deemed unachievable by various critics. However, where there is a will there is a way and on 1 January 2008 Malta joined the eurozone. Again, against all negative predictions, the transition to the euro was seamless and today we can say that it is another feather in the PN’s hat.

What’s next? Now that our society has deep-rooted democratic principles, the economy is on a sound footing and the country is a fully-fledged member of the EU and the eurozone, we need to aim higher and embark towards achieving new goals. Now is the time to focus on other sectors, such as the environment, which will consolidate the results that we have all achieved over the years.

David Agius is a Nationalist Party MP