Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi on Sunday announced that the government will present the budget once deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg has been appointed as European Commissioner and his replacement in the Maltese parliament chosen through a casual election.

Dr Borg’s grilling session in the European Parliament is set for 20 or 21 November while the whole process of the casual election may take up to a week to complete.  According to Dr Gonzi the Maltese government is working hard to speed up the process, with the best case scenario being that Dr Borg’s appointment would be around the third week of November. This would mean that the budget may well be presented in the last week of November if not in December, which would be unprecedented for Malta, at least in the last 30 years.

Had not the government been in the midst of a political crisis with one of its MPs repeatedly declaring that he is relishing the opportunity to bring down the government, such a postponement would not raise any eyebrows. However reality is totally different, with questions being raised on the decision to procrastinate with the presentation of next year’s budget.

First of all we fail to see any justification why the prime minister has linked Dr Borg’s appointment in Brussels to the budget. At face value this seems to be another in a long series of excuses, to spin out the last few months of this legislature. With the PL keeping its 12% lead over the PN in the opinion polls, we fail to see any point in all this strategy even from the purely political aspect.

If the government really means business about defending the national interest, the least thing it could have done is to announce the budget date irrespective of any political considerations. In the context of Franco Debono’s declaration that he will not support the government as long as transport minister Austin Gatt forms part of the cabinet, this procrastination on the budget is more like a stay of execution rather than anything else.

Meanwhile Tonio Borg’s nomination to succeed John Dalli as European Commissioner, has conveyed contrasting messages. On one hand the government can claim that it wanted to send a strong message to Brussels by sending its deputy prime minister to show it means business and thus restore the reputation both of the commission and Malta’s. However considering that the prime minister had been aware of Olaf’s investigation of John Dalli as early as last July other questions arise.

Could it be that the government had all its plans ready just in case the worse comes to the worst and Mr Dalli was forced to resign, as in fact happened?  Could it be that the government was pinning its hopes to renew the leadership on the eve of a general election with this possibility? Has the government unnecessarily gambled the country’s stability even future even further by linking Dr Borg’s appointment as commissioner to the national budget? What if Dr Borg’s bid fails at the European Parliament?

Since the onset of the political crisis a year ago, the prime minister has repeatedly declared that the overriding principle in his decisions will be to safeguard the national interest. However, with no announcement in sight regarding the budget date as well as the government’s procrastination to hold potentially embarrassing parliamentary debates fearing it might lose more members of cabinet, reality suggests otherwise.