The rise in salaries for ministers is tied to collective agreements for the public sector, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana told The Malta Independent in an interview. 

The Budget for 2026 was unveiled earlier this week on Monday.

It includes an increase in salary for ministers of around €1,700.

Asked about the rise by this newsroom, the minister said that "there has been absolutely no change in rules as to how the wages for ministers or MPs are worked out. Our wages are pegged to the public sector collective agreement. If I'm not mistaken, we receive around 125% of the wage of Salary Scale 1, and it has been like that for years. So when unions negotiated the collective agreement for the public sector, it includes a yearly schedule of wages."

"Given that the first scale received so much for next year, we will receive a percentage of that scale," he said.

"It is tied to the collective agreement, there has been absolutely no change to the rules or the formulas. We are not getting a cent more than what the formula was producing in terms of wages for ministers and MPs for the past years." 

Earlier this week, Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg brought up the pay rise, and said that Prime Minister Robert Abela should immediately withdraw the €1,700 yearly pay rise "he awarded himself and his Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the budget."