This weekend heralds the sixth anniversary of when Robert Abela was elected as Labour Party leader and, by extension, Malta's Prime Minister, as he succeeded the then-scandal-ridden Joseph Muscat who resigned under the cloud of mass protests.

Abela's first five years were anything but easy: he faced a global pandemic almost immediately after taking office, a mix of electoral triumphs and shocks, and cobbled together an economy which sprinted in its post-pandemic recovery but which created consequences which are now starting to be felt.

The Prime Minister also faced his fair share of scandals - some of his predecessor's making, and some of his own - and he was criticised on more than one occasion for being indecisive and prone to u-turns when it comes to certain scandals and major issues, such as the Jean Paul Sofia case.

So how did the last 12 months compare to his first five years in office?

Responding to economic consequences

One of the major plus points in Robert Abela's favour since he took office was the country's economic performance and, particularly, its economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

After the Covid-19 pandemic subsided, Malta continued where it left off by topping European charts for economic growth and for having record low unemployment levels.  While the country wasn't spared from the effects of economic shocks such as the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Abela's administration managed to keep a lid on the worst of the ill-effects.

That came at a financial cost to the government of course, so much so that the country's debt doubled from €5 billion at the start of Abela's tenure, to more than €10 billion at the start of 2025. That trend has continued in the last 12 months: the country's debt now stands €11.3 billion.

While 2025 saw Malta's economy continue to grow at a healthy rate, these 12 months also saw the people - and, by extension, the government - start to really have to grapple with the more negative consequences.

Discontent has risen particularly on overpopulation.  It's a fact that the population of foreign workers in Malta has ballooned since the Labour Party came to power in 2013, and it's generally accepted that this played a hefty role in Malta's economic success in the past few years.

But a growing number of people feel that the limit has not just been reached, but also surpassed.  The government responded with a new Labour Migration Policy which came into effect last August.

This introduced some 20 key measures as the government moved to tighten controls, fight abuse protect workers' rights, and ensure that third-country nationals are employed where genuinely needed.

Another significant population-related concern that came up during the last 12 months was on Malta's low birth rate, and the government moved to address that in the Budget 2026 announcement in October by offering significant tax cuts for families with children.

It would be amiss to say that the economy is faltering: but it would be equally amiss to say that there isn't discontent with certain elements of it. 

Abela and his government have tried to respond to the concerns that there are - whether, ultimately, they've responded with measures that will be impactful will be something to be seen in 2026 and beyond.

The environment takes centre stage

Over the course of the last 12 months, the environment has taken much more of a centre stage in the government's and Robert Abela's work and policy stances than ever before.  In some ways, that has been a good thing... in others, not so much.

The increased attention has come in response to more and more disgruntlement at the pace of Malta's development - and, by extension, the pace of Malta's environmental deterioration.  Abela's response has, in some ways, been a little bit contradictory.

A definite policy shift was signalled when Abela - eventually - responded to the pressure put on by a growing movement of NGOs and the public by deciding that the government would not only move to terminate part of the concession for MIDI plc to develop Manoel Island, but would then also turn the area into a national park.

This was followed further down the line by decisions to turn the abandoned White Rocks complex - which has been slated for many and various different types of developments over the years - in Pembroke into a national park, and to save Fort Tigne in Sliema from being bought out by the private sector and developed into a hotel.

These decisions are the clearest signal of intent in favour of the environment set by the Labour government since it came to power in 2013.

So it's all the more baffling that the government has, at the same time, tabled two Bills which propose wholesale changes to how the planning process in Malta works - and not in a good way.

Bills 143 and 144, which propose swathes of changes to Malta's planning laws, were tabled just before Parliament rose for the summer recess, with no public consultation and little consultation with sectoral entities - the only stakeholders consulted, the government later admitted, was the Malta Developers' Association and the Chamber of Architects.

The Bills were described as a "developers' wishlist" by NGOs - and with good reason: they proposed things such as removing the courts' authority to revoke a planning permit, allow the Planning Authority to amend local plans at will, and restrict how appeals can be filed.

Protests followed until the government eventually relented from its initial intention to rush the Bills through Parliament and opened them up for public consultation.  What the outcome of that will be remains to be seen in 2026.

A hardened stance on scandals

One of the points highlighted in the first five years of Abela's tenure was how it was beset by several resignations - some of which came despite Abela's best efforts.

In Chris Fearne's case, Abela begged him to stay on and was rebuffed by Fearne himself. In Rosianne Cutajar's case, he first threatened to kick her out of the parliamentary group only to let her back in little over a year later - with even his request for an apology ignored.  In Clayton Bartolo's case, he resisted and resisted calls for the minister's resignation over an ethics breach only to have him step down after a new scandal emerged.

Most notably this year, Abela defended Social Housing Minister Roderick Galdes - rejecting calls for his resignation - over his controversial property portfolio.  He also refused the resignation offer of Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri over the theft of over 100kg of drugs from an Armed Forces of Malta compound.  Camilleri was exonerated by an inquiry over the debacle some weeks later.

But Abela has also hardened his stance on scandals and - more so, how these scandals come about.

His administration has faced scandals or inquiries on things ranging from social benefits fraud, fake identity cards, a LESA racket, and the secret company 17 Black. Abela's answer to new requests for magisterial inquiries was simple: introduce legislative changes which stop people from directly requesting a magisterial inquiry in the first place.

Prior to this reform, a citizen could file a request for a magisterial inquiry directly with a magistrate, who then decides accordingly whether there is enough evidence for such an inquiry to be launched.  That can no longer happen.

Now, people must first file a police report, let the police investigate and they can only resort to a magisterial inquiry if six months have elapsed from the report being filed - and if a decision on whether to prosecute the person concerned or not has not been taken.

Abela said the reform was required because the system was being "abused", and that innocent people were being destroyed by lengthy proceedings, but plenty of critics - ranging from the Opposition to NGOs to members of the legal community - said that the reform was an attack on the country's rule of law and any concept of accountability.

The Bill was ultimately passed by Parliament with government backing, and came into law last April.

The odd u-turn here and there

One of the biggest critiques of Abela in his first five years was his apparent indecisiveness and propensity towards u-turns.  His u-turn on whether to call a public inquiry on the case of Jean Paul Sofia goes down as a permanent stain on his time in power.

The last 12 months has not been without, albeit more minor, u-turns either.

The biggest of the lot was the government's change of heart on its proposed planning reforms. The Bills were initially tabled in Parliament on a Friday afternoon in mid-July, and the Nationalist Party alleged that the government intended to rush them through Parliament the following week.

When the proposed reforms came to light, a raft of protests were organised against it until the government ultimately relented and launched a public consultation on them.  Elements of the original reform may be on the chopping block, but any potentially new Bill is yet to be issued thus far.

There was also something of a change of tack on Manoel Island - albeit not as profound as the change of tack exhibited by Abela's then-counterpart Bernard Grech.

Abela went from saying in March 2024 that the contractual obligations on Manoel Island were clear, and that the project that was proposed was "a project of the highest quality."  Just over a year later, he said that taking the land back would not be feasible, and wouldn't make financial sense.

He later criticised the ongoing narrative as "selective", noting that the revised master plan by MIDI focuses on heritage preservation and significantly reduces the development footprint and then attacked the PN administration which granted the concession.

Here, however, he said that the government would be analysing the concession to ensure that the contractual obligations were being fulfilled.  In June, he met the people behind the petition to turn Manoel Island into a national park, and it seemed that he had been swayed: "I told the petitioners that their fight is my fight... This is a cause I greatly believe in," he said.

The day didn't even end until MIDI issued a company announcement saying it was ready to sit down with the government to reach a solution where the land would be given back to the state.