It is nothing short of incredible that the Labour Party has stated that, if push comes to shove in an electoral sense, it will retain Budget 2013 as announced on Wednesday. But at the same time, it is also very well expected to vote against the budget when the vote is called on 10 December, a week from tomorrow.
On that day, Nationalist MP Franco Debono has declared he will not vote with the government’s whip and an election will, in that case, have to be called within three days.
The Opposition is correct in committing to implement the budget framework that was unveiled on Wednesday in the interest of national stability. But what would be truly remarkable would be if it were to vote against a budget it has already committed to retain, solely in the interest, at long last in the Opposition’s eyes, of forcing an early election after so many similar efforts had been thwarted over the past year or so.
As such, whatever happens on 10 December, Budget 2013 appears set to remain in place. And if the budget does not pass the parliamentary test, there are at least provisions to keep the country running in the meantime until the general election is held. Such legal safeguards provide for a limit on public spending of one-third of this year’s budget, i.e. that of Budget 2012.
And with a spring election being anticipated, if the Labour Party does win the next election, it would need to have a new budget in hand and ready to pass through Parliament as early in its term as possible.
That eventuality was neatly plugged by Labour’s announcement that it would retain the budget announced by the government this week. The fact of the matter is that if Labour were to redraft any aspect of Budget 2013, it would also have to reopen discussions with the European Commission, which, for the first time this year, is assessing member states’ budgets to ensure they are fiscally responsible and sustainable.
Following several European sovereign debt crises, the government has had to work within a new EU framework this year that sees the European Commission assessing member states’ budgets before they are presented.
Malta had been in favour of the measure after a number of member states gave Brussels additional powers 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 this week, 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.
This assessment process is no quick one and, in fact, it is one of the reasons why last Wednesday’s budget had been announced slightly later than usual.
Nor can selected bits and pieces be cherry-picked from a budget, which, for better or for worse, provides a mosaic of measures that are intrinsically intertwined – every initiative needs to be financed and each forms part of an integral part of a complete package.
It can in a sense be likened to a game of Jenga – if you take too many pieces out of it, the whole thing collapses.
And by saying that it will proceed with Budget 2013 as it stands, the Opposition is also effectively backing out of what could have been an electoral battle of the budgets. But whatever the case, as the finance minister said in an interview with this newspaper last week, if the budget does not survive the parliamentary vote, it will serve as a fundamental cornerstone in the Nationalist Party’s electoral programme.
It would stand to reason that if the Labour Party has decided to adopt the government’s budget as is, if an early election is called and if it wins that election, it would vote in favour of the budget on 10 December. It is certainly not expected to do so but then again, rare are the instances in which such political games are reasonable on any level.