As was expected, last Monday's budget speech solemnly announced a budget surplus for the first time in many years. However, the environmental deficit was, as usual, hidden between the lines. The...

When deciding what to write about this week and weighing up the various irritations or annoyances, I was faced with a bit of a challenge. With the portly Prime Minister jetting off to god knows where...

The government presents the budget at this time of the year or in November and the Unions and Chambers respond with their opinion.  Good or poor, almost or nothing.  Once again, it seems,...

Last year the Government registered a surplus of €100 million, following more than 35 years of successive deficits. Labour turned a deficit of more than €360 million in 2012 to a surplus in...

A budget without new taxes is rare, if not unique. A budget with no increases to existing taxes, not even on cigarettes, is probably unprecedented. Usually, the first budget after an...

If I had to choose two words to describe this year’s budget I would use “missed opportunity”. In a budget speech ironically called Investing for the Future, Minister Edward Scicluna...

The best analysis that could be attempted of the 2018 budget should focus on how the fiscal space the government presently enjoys is going to be used to guide future developments. It’s been...

Any otherwise sensible and politically attuned person who campaigned for Adrian Delia to become leader of the Nationalist Party should by now be undergoing a dawning realisation of something akin to...

This has been another eventful week. Jerome Frendo:  Losing one of yours is always very difficult to fathom and more so at such a tender age.  Jerome, this kind, sympathetic and...

In the past three weeks, two keynote speeches of substance were delivered.  On Independence Day, the Archbishop of Malta Charles J. Scicluna stressed the need to promote the common good during...