If Budget 2012 was an exercise in staving off the brunt of the recessionary economic downturn spreading across Europe this time last year, Budget 2013 is an apparent continuation of that process.

This budget, as in every other budget since 2008, has held ‘fiscal responsibility’ as its catchphrase.  And with this budget being the last of the legislature, the temptation to deviate from that course must have been strong.

But in keeping to a sound fiscal base, Budget 2013, on the whole, comes with very few frills attached and very few of the pre-electoral goodies that many had presumably hoped for.

Malta’s budget bids bid to get its finances in shape to be able to adopt the euro as well as post-eurozone accession budgets, drafted in the midst of the most serious economic downturn the world has seen in a century, have all necessitated brass tack, responsible budgets.

As such, there has been very little room for fiscal manoeuvring over recent years, and this year has been no different. In fact the government’s fiscal space has become even more limited given that this budget is the first to have been approved, in a manner of speaking, by the European Commission.

Following several European sovereign debt crises, this year the government has had to work within a new EU framework that sees the European Commission assessing member states’ budgets before they are presented.

Malta had stood in favour of the measure after a number of member states which bestowed the Commission with more power to ensure that each country presents and executes its budget in such a way that their public debt and deficit remains in check and sustainable. 

While the Commission did not necessarily ‘approve’ each and every budget measure presented yesterday evening, it inspected the budget’s forecast public revenues and expenditure, and ensured that neither risked bringing the country into the turmoil so many others have found themselves in.

One only need mention the economies of Italy, Portugal, Spain or Greece to realise that that the last thing the Maltese economy needed at the present moment were hollow, cosmetic budget-linked electoral promises that run the risk of derailing the fiscal stability that the country has built for itself.

And given still-prevailing economic situation in Europe, it would not take much to derail the Maltese economy, which is in a precarious position but which is holding its head well above water as compared with several of it competing economies.

In that scenario, what the country needed was another no-nonsense budget that cuts to the heart of the problems the country is facing - and that is more or less, and pending further analysis, what the government announced yesterday evening.

And with the European Commission having recently lifted Malta out of its Excessive Deficit Procedure, which kicks into place when a country’s deficit and debt levels begin to redline, the finance minister yesterday upped the ante further by announcing the government’s intention to table a draft bill on the adoption of a modern, transparent fiscal framework aimed at further strengthening what has been built.

After all, Malta’s success in weathering the economic storms over these last years has been a major feather in the present government’s cap, as has the successful implementation of the strict fiscal discipline required to meet the EU’s Maastricht criteria for eurozone entry.

And while this budget contained no major electoral enticements, it had quite another electoral message: fiscal responsibility - and this in itself can very well be expected to be one of the government’s electoral platforms once the official electoral campaign descends upon us.