The Budget Speech read out by Minister Tonio Fenech in Parliament last night would have been considered, objectively, as a good Budget … were it not for the surreal atmosphere surrounding it, given the likelihood it will be shot down when the first vote takes place in the coming days.

Essentially, the government programme outlined yesterday is a continuation of the policies which have stood Malta well over the past years.

As Mr Fenech said right at the beginning of the speech, considering the economic crisis in the countries around us and in the eurozone, Malta has been doing quite well.

Malta is not in a recession while the eurozone is.

Malta has registered the seventh greatest growth in the EU.

Malta has the fifth lowest unemployment in all eurozone.

Maltese workers pay the least tax in the EU – 21.7% against an average 36% in the EU27.

Malta aims at a deficit of 1.74% next year, aims at ending this year at 2.34% and ended last year with a deficit of 2.72%.

The budget aims at a growth rate of 1.2% next year while the EU is looking forward to a negative 0.4% rate next year.

The government, with this Budget Speech, has concluded its electoral commitment with the last tassel being the reduction in tax rates, spread over three years.

One must also remember that apart from implementing its electoral commitments, the crisis and recession have made the government come out with more than it had promised, such as the various schemes to encourage training and Micro-Credit to help industries employ more people.

The government may well not get the approval it is seeking from the House of Representatives but it has already succeeded in getting that of the European Commission. At next week’s meeting of EU finance ministers, the Commission will ask to remove the disciplinary measures it has imposed against Malta (and against many other Member States) for not keeping to the Maastricht Criteria.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In normal circumstances – that is, were this Budget Speech to be approved by the House, and the measures contained therein be implemented, one could look forward to their delivering the expected results.

All this has been done on the basis of three tax increases – an increase in fuel taxes, cigarettes and cement – which are expected to deliver to the government an approximate €12 million, to compensate for the reduction in tax rates.

Over the past months, the government incentives to industry and enterprise have been widely welcomed and taken up and they have delivered the expected results. The government has now assessed these results and as a result has come up with in some cases an extension of previous schemes and also with some new schemes.

Rather than giving cash to people or to families (which mostly will then be used on imported goods), these are targeted help which depend on their being taken up and delivering results.

Unfortunately, as far as this writer could hear, this point was not emphasized by the minister in his speech: it is a fact that government revenue over the past year has increased - VAT, income tax, etc – by €180 million.

That is the result of the growth there has been in the economy, even though on absolute terms it has been a rather weak one. But one must compare this to the much worse results registered in other Member States especially our neighbours in Southern Europe. So many of these countries would give their right hands to get this kind of result.

Which brings us to our starting point. It is indeed a pity that such remarkable results, whatever the other aspects of this administration, were to be thrown away with a negative vote over the coming days, derived mostly from political and even personal motivations and not from objective analysis of an economy that is facing problems.

That, however, is exactly the paradox we are living.