If there was ever a time to batten down the budgetary hatches against a coming economic storm, that time is now. Europe is facing a new economic crisis and recession that could make the 2008 financial meltdown look like a walk in the park, and governments are already paying the highest political price.

We have been hearing, it seems, the same message year in year out, but given the fresh turmoil facing the European Union and the eurozone, and the global economy along with it, Malta absolutely needs to put up as thick a buffer as possible if it is to prepare itself for a tidal wave that could very well engulf the economy.

Tomorrow’s budget speech comes before an ominous backdrop, another year of economic turmoil in Europe and a coming year that threatens to relegate the fiscal woes of recent years in the shadows. Like a ping pong ball tossed around in a whirlpool, Malta is at the economic mercy of the currents surrounding it, but that ball has so far been kept watertight, and we have not sunk.

Economies are sinking around us, even Italy, our closest neighbour, was yesterday evening witnessing the final throes of the Berlusconi government. Not even Berlusconi’s charisma was enough in the face of the crisis bearing down upon us.

Granted, this all sounds very much like a page out of the prime or finance ministers’ verse book, but in reality it could not be closer to truth of the matter.

Malta has a number of disadvantages when it comes to international recessions, considerations that we need to be extremely careful of. We are a small economy and as such we are extremely susceptible to external economic shocks, HSBC in a recent report described the country as being particularly susceptible to the vagaries of the global economy.

In fact, given all that has transpired over the last four years, we should well and truly be counting our blessings that we are not currently sharing the fate of Greece, Ireland, Portugal or Italy. According to the finance minister, interviewed in today’s issue, had certain decisions such as the highly controversial hike in utility tariffs not been taken, tomorrow’s budget would be following the path of actions being taken by Greece and Italy.

Those decisions still smart to this day, and they have been politically costly for the party administering the country. But had the government not paid the political price, the people would have paid a far higher price. That is just one of the burdens, and risks, of being the incumbent.

We hope that in the reply to the budget speech a week from tomorrow, the Opposition will have at least constructive criticism if not valid counter-policies to present for, having just scraped through two no confidence motions, this is a time for national unity, to find strength in banding together in the face of the very real threats to our national livelihood, and this is certainly no time for further divisions.

The Opposition’s bemoaning of the situation and its nitpicking, the criticisms that followed the Moody’s downgrading being just one case in point, reveals a political immaturity and a lack of political acumen that needs urgent addressing. It is the opposition that presents real, tangible counter-proposals that is credible, and although it promises that these will be revealed in good time, that is simply not good enough.

If the Opposition has credible and actionable policies that could help the country at this juncture, the time to spill the beans is now. Otherwise, it would seem that either there are no such policies or that the Opposition is simply keeping its good ideas under wraps until it is in power. If they exist, the country would like to hear about them now, and not a year plus down the road - now is when the country needs these ideas.

It is the macro that concerns us in the budget that will be launched upon us tomorrow, not the micro and the parochial. Tomorrow’s speech should be about buffering the country from what is being forecast.

The European Commission did not choose last Thursday to issue a dire warning of an impending new European recession because Malta’s budget was just days away. The government is not using the current economic turmoil as an excuse to not give out the tax breaks that were promised in better times or, as is constantly and misleadingly claimed, for having mishandling public finances.

Far from it. There is a very cold, hard and real threat facing us and we need to prepare ourselves.

First and foremost, that is what tomorrow’s budget needs to do.