All that we seem to hear about these days is the forthcoming Budget Speech. Isn’t it so predictable that when we are in growth years all seem to compete and push for giveaways but now that the whole world is in recession, it seems like the whole country is against the government and its impending, and perceived to be quite onerous, ‘punishment’?

The government itself did not exactly help clarify matters since it got so embroiled in the electricity rates/surcharge discussion (about which later on), which is focusing minds in quite the opposite direction. For at Budget time the government is, or should be, a paterfamilias, doing what’s best for the whole family rather than a businessman seeking to push his own business at the cost of his own children. At least, that’s what other governments do.

A third issue in our case derives from the fact that we, almost five years after EU accession, are coming to the end of many transition periods and derogations and have quite a back-log of things we should have done but did not do. Privatising energy and fuel distribution are cases in point, as is the end of State aid subsidies to the dockyard.

But, as we said and insisted last week, the main context of the coming Budget is and has to be the current world crisis, spawned by the sub-prime crash in the US which has led to so much mayhem not just in the US but also in Europe and which has pushed many economies into recession. And whose ultimate effects and consequences are still not apparent to us.

It seems that most of our leaders are still in a very much insular mode – both those on the government side who insist, against all evidence, that the world crisis has not touched us, and those who aim to kick the government whatever it will come up with, those who argue, quite rightly, that wages have been kept on the low side, but who then erupt in sympathy whenever a factory relocates to India or China even though Maltese wages have not risen all that much.

Let us say it loud and clear: there is no way we can escape from a world recession. We were always subject to whatever was going on in the world, even when we had bastions of protectionism as high as the bastions surrounding Valletta. A look at Malta’s recent past economic history shows that we did not escape recessions but actually made things much worse for ourselves by adopting policies which were manifestly unsuitable to the crisis, such as import substitution, or fighting with Japan.

Now that we are in the EU, now that we have the euro, now that our economic policy is laid out for us at Frankfurt’s European Bank, we have a much better future than when economic policy, or what passed for one, was dictated in shouting matches at Castille.

Over the years, we have created an economy, which, unlike the 1960s model, is not based on one or two sectors, but is evenly spread around in so many sectors that it has to be a really bad recession for them all to be affected together.

Take tourism, for instance. Maybe we will see the recession in our core markets that will make people cut down on the holidays they take. But maybe, too, people in these core markets will opt for shorter, ‘low cost’ holidays rather than the long haul ones they were taking.

We do have one or two locally-created problem areas, which may be negatively impacted by recession. One is the crisis in the construction industry. This has long been warned: there is too much building going on, and prices have been rising and are too high for most people. But even here, except for those whose aspirations have been too high to foresee such eventualities, a hiatus will not harm people and maybe even lead to more manageable prices.

The other problem area is inflation, which has risen far beyond what the figures say. The social partners would be quite right if they round on the government about this, but this is what they’re not doing. They could do more: they should argue that government-induced costs are one prime area that should be tackled and brought down, more than anything else.

This is the time when all the government’s past statements (and boasts and electoral promises) come home to roost. There are no simple panaceas. Malta was right to rush to euro membership at the first opportunity, against the advice of those who advised waiting. And Malta would be wise not to heed the siren advice of those who now urge Malta to postpone a balanced budget beyond 2010. Following this advice means procrastination, delays and extending pain for more and more years.

The proper and right way ahead is to turn to more profitable and remunerative opportunities, to aim for excellence, to use this crisis to improve our delivery, and to aim to emerge stronger than ever before. This is the government’s prime duty in the coming Budget: to explain to the country how the whole country can emerge from the recession with as little pain as possible and how we can also benefit from the opportunities that will emerge.

As we said earlier, there are some issues that the government was fool enough to allow itself to be associated with the proper pre-Budget debate in the country and which will now inevitably colour people’s perceptions of what comes out of the box tomorrow week.

One such issue is the electricity/surcharge issue. Let’s admit here that this is a mess. The price of oil has spiked but has now decreased to levels we never ever dreamt of seeing. But Malta purchased its oil when it was on the rise and hedging (everyone was blaming the government for not hedging, remember?) was done late and at what is now a far too high level. At the same time, the government was damnably late in turning to alternative energy, even if this does not come any cheaper. And the take-up in the country of energy-saving appliances and solar heating systems, etc, is still on the low side.

A prudent government would have hived off the whole discussion apart from the Budget and, rather than having ministers coming out with diktats about back-dated energy rates, and removing the capping of big industries at one fell swoop (even though there can be an argument for fairness to be made here), come together with the consultative bodies (meanwhile who represents the ordinary citizen at such meetings?) and taken a holistic decision in proper time and for the years to come.

Similarly, the issue regarding car registration fees. Again, this should have been hived off from the Budget debate. The car importers have been kept in the dark for the past months, unable to plan ahead, unable even to order cars since they did not know what was going to be announced. It is true there are at least two other sectors here – the used car importers and the used car dealers. And the government would not be doing things for the best future of the country if it were to treat the three sectors equally. It, and the country at large, should be asking itself: what is the right choice for the future of the country?

What this country could have avoided, if its leaders were any saner, was the present, and most certainly future scenario once the Budget Speech is made, of the usual partisan orgy of attacks and counter-attacks as if that is the only way we know how to conduct business.