Alex Agius Saliba

Headline income tax has trended down (lower rates 2013, wider bands 2025/2026, parental zero-band path). But several new taxes and levies have been introduced since 2013 — the €0.50/night Environmental Contribution (2016), the Plastic Single-Use levy (2022), motor-vehicle CO₂ adjustments, and other restructured charges. The 'never any new tax' absolute is literally untrue, even though the income-tax direction has been clearly downward.

Malta did go back under the EU Excessive Deficit Procedure in July 2024 — opened against this Labour government — so the claim that 'PL didn't push the country into excessive deficit' isn't literally true. But Malta has materially outperformed its corrective targets: 2024 deficit came in at 3.7% versus a budgeted 4.5%, debt-to-GDP fell to 47.4%, and Brussels' 2025 update confirmed Malta is on track to exit EDP two years ahead of schedule (2026 vs target 2027). Mixed opinion — partly wrong on the literal EDP point, partly right on outperformance.

'Year after year' lands as exaggeration as a credit-claim — but the majority of years since 2017 did see PL discretionary policy work above the COLA baseline. Every year since 2013 the gazetted weekly minimum wage rose, true; but most of those moves were the 1990 statutory COLA mechanism that runs administration-independent. The substantive PL credit-claim — work above COLA — covers a majority of years since 2017, not every year. Three discretionary PL-era supplements are confirmed in the Budget Implementation Reports (Twettiq tal-Baġit 2022-2025): the 2017 Social Partners' Agreement which set up the Low Wage Commission framework and delivered a phased ~€10/week structural uplift across 2017-2019; the Additional COLA Mechanism (COLA Addizzjonali) launched December 2022 to give targeted top-ups to low-income households when essential-goods inflation outruns standard COLA; and the October 2023 Social Partners' Agreement recorded in Twettiq 2024 as Budget Measure 74 (Żieda fil-Paga Minima sal-2027) — Implimentata, delivering structural step-ups 2024-2027 including +€8.24/week to €221.78/week in 2025 per Twettiq 2025 Budget Measure 3. The pure-COLA gap years (2013-2016 and 2020-2022) carry no PL discretionary action above the baseline. 'Year after year' captures the gazette but oversells the policy work.

Confirmed by Prime Minister Robert Abela at the November 2024 PSCA signing — he stated the public-service deal was 'one of nearly 140 sectoral agreements concluded since 2022, representing an investment of around €2 billion in wage increases alone'. The headline anchor is the 2025-2030 PSCA at €1.27bn over six years for 33,000 workers; add predecessor 2022-2024 PSCA, the teachers' agreement (2023), police corps agreement (2023), and Civil Protection sectoral agreement, and the cumulative wage envelope lines up.

Confirmed on the public record by Prime Minister Robert Abela himself at the November 2024 PSCA signing — he stated the agreement was 'one of nearly 140 sectoral agreements concluded since 2022'. AAS's figure tracks directly to the PM's own framing. Consistent with DIER's filing trend (sectoral, enterprise-level and public-entity agreements) plus the two anchor public-service deals.

Documentary fact. Gozo's unemployment rate sits at one of the lowest levels in NSO's series and Jobsplus reports record vacancies — particularly in tourism, hospitality and care sectors. Gozitan employers report active difficulty filling roles year-round. Both the Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber publicly flag labour shortages as the headline issue for member businesses.