The The Malta Chamber of Commerce has urged political parties to exercise restraint following a hectic first week of the election campaign, with both major parties unveiling a wave of costly electoral pledges in what is increasingly resembling a supermarket-style bidding war for votes.
In an official statement issued yesterday, the Chamber warned against “short-term populist measures” and called on political leaders to prioritise fiscal sustainability, productivity, competitiveness and long-term economic planning over electoral expediency. The Chamber stressed that Malta cannot continue expanding public expenditure indefinitely while simultaneously facing mounting infrastructure pressures, labour shortages and declining productivity growth.
The statement comes after a week in which the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party announced multiple expensive proposals ranging from new hospitals and free medicine schemes to tax cuts, stipend increases, subsidies and expanded welfare programmes.
Particular concern has emerged following the Labour Party’s First of May rally in Valletta, where Prime Minister Robert Abela continued rolling out a series of high-cost proposals and subsidies under the slogan of a “strong economy”. Among the proposals announced during the first days of the campaign were:
- free Gozo Channel trips for passengers travelling without cars,
- a 15% increase in stipends,
- expanded subsidies for first-time buyers,
- a €600 million third interconnector with Sicily,
- large-scale Gozo infrastructure projects,
- and multiple new welfare and tax-support schemes.
The Nationalist Party under Alex Borg has also unveiled its own expensive package of proposals, including:
- a new hospital in northern Malta,
- a new hospital in Gozo,
- major expansion of Mater Dei Hospital,
- free cancer medicine,
- increased stipends,
- and tax incentives aimed at attracting healthcare professionals back to Malta.
The Chamber’s intervention underlines concerns that Malta’s economic model is increasingly relying on permanent subsidies, debt-financed expenditure and politically-driven fiscal expansion. In previous budget submissions, the Chamber repeatedly warned that Malta’s infrastructure is “bursting at the seams” and that the country cannot continue depending on endless population growth, construction expansion and public spending without risking structural deterioration in competitiveness and quality of life.
The Chamber also warned that government spending must deliver proper value to taxpayers and criticised extravagant expenditure with little long-term economic return. It stressed that Malta requires political consensus around productivity, value-added industries, infrastructure reform and fiscal discipline rather than escalating electoral promises.
The Chamber’s statement represents one of the first major institutional pushbacks against the increasingly populist tone of the electoral campaign, where both major parties are competing to promise ever-larger spending commitments amid slowing productivity growth and growing structural pressures on the Maltese economy.
You can read the statement of the Chamber of Commerce here.
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