Malta has proportionally the second largest Cabinet in the European Union, available statistics show. With a Prime Minister leading a team of 18 ministers and eight parliamentary secretaries, only Luxembourg has a bigger Cabinet than Malta’s, when the number of ministers is compared to the number of MPs in Parliament.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Robert Abela carried out changes to his line-up of ministers and parliamentary secretaries, leaving the number of ministers at 18 (replacing one minister with another) but increasing the number of parliamentary secretaries from six to eight.

When Abela had led Labour to electoral victory in 2022, his Cabinet was already the largest in history. Now it is even bigger after the 6 January changes.

The only minister to lose his place was Aaron Farrugia, who was removed from his position as Transport and Infrastructure minister to be replaced by Chris Bonett, who had previously been a parliamentary secretary.

A topic of discussion is the number of ministers who form part of the Cabinet when this is put into perspective and compared to other members of the European Union, all of which are much larger than Malta both in terms of land and population size.

The Malta Independent on Sunday analysed the percentages of ministers among each European Union member states’ Parliament or lower house in the case of certain countries having two legislative chambers. The United Kingdom was also included.

Eurostat statistics show that among all the members of the EU, Malta has the smallest population by a sizeable margin. The latest EU demographic statistics show Malta’s 2023 population as just over 542,000. Luxembourg follows Malta as the country with the second smallest population at just under 661,000, which is then followed by Cyprus at a little over 920,000.

The EU country with the largest population by a significant margin is Germany at over 84 million. France has the second largest population at just over 68 million.

Out of the other 27 countries analysed, only one topped Malta in terms of MPs-Ministers proportionality. Only Luxembourg has a bigger proportion, with 15 ministers out of 60 MPs, which is 25% of the whole Parliament. Luxembourg was ahead of Malta in this regard by 0.9%.

The Maltese Parliament currently has 79 MPs with 19 forming part of the Cabinet, including Prime Minister Abela. This means that just above 24% of the Parliament is made up of people holding the position of minister.

Through an analysis of EU members’ Parliaments, it was found that despite having the largest population, as well as the largest Parliament, Germany had the lowest proportion of ministers forming the executive. The German government is made up of 17 ministers – one fewer than Malta. Germany’s Parliament is made up of 736 representatives, which means that only 2.3% of the German MPs serve as ministers.

It should be noted that for the purpose of this analysis, parliamentary secretaries, deputy ministers and others were not included and only those holding the title of Cabinet ministers were counted as being members of the Cabinet.

Prime ministers were always considered as being members of the Cabinet, and in certain cases the presidents or chancellors were counted wherever appropriate according to their responsibilities and authority.

 

The following list details this newsroom’s findings in order from highest to lowest percentages.

Percentages were rounded up where necessary:

 

Luxembourg 60 representatives, 15 ministers = 25%

Malta 79 representatives, 19 Ministers = 24.1%

Slovenia 90 representatives, 20 ministers = 22.2%

Cyprus 56 representatives, 12 ministers = 21.4%

Latvia 100 representatives, 15 ministers = 15%

The Netherlands 150 representatives, 20 ministers = 13.3%

Estonia  101 representatives, 13 ministers = 12.9%

Denmark 179 representatives, 23 ministers = 12.8%

Croatia 151 representatives, 18 ministers = 11.9%

Slovakia 150 representatives, 16 ministers = 10.7%

Lithuania 141 representatives, 15 ministers = 10.6%

Belgium 150 representatives, 15 ministers = 10%

Finland 200 representatives, 19 ministers = 9.5%

Ireland 160 representatives, 15 ministers = 9.4%

Czechia 200 representatives, 18 ministers = 9%

Bulgaria 240 representatives, 20 ministers = 8.3%

Portugal 230 representatives, 18 ministers = 7.8%

Austria 183 representatives, 14 ministers = 7.7%

Greece 300 representatives, 21 ministers = 7%

Hungary 199 representatives, 14 ministers = 7%

Sweden 349 representatives, 24 ministers = 6.9%

Italy 400 representatives, 27 ministers = 6.8%

Spain 350 representatives, 23 ministers = 6.6%

Romania 330 representatives, 20 ministers = 6.1%

Poland  460 representatives, 27 ministers = 5.9%

United Kingdom 650 representatives, 23 ministers = 3.5%

France 577 representatives, 15 ministers = 2.6%

Germany  736 representatives, 17 ministers = 2.3%