A Modest Performance

 

The government certainly does not enjoy very high popularity ratings at this moment and, unless a miracle were to happen, it looks headed for a defeat in the next general elections. I don't know to what extent this has anything to do with its actual performance, as opposed to the fact that the opposition has done what is necessary to make itself electable again. It may well be that the next general election was decided three years ago, right after the last one, when Labour finally accepted Malta's EU membership as a fact.

That said, I am not particularly impressed by this government's performance - particularly its pathetically weak stance on immigration and its half-hearted economic reforms (Fausto points out a depressing example here). By Maltese (and European) standards, its achievements have certainly not been negligible in every field. The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom shows that Malta has been steadily freeing its economy over the past eight years, moving from a score of 3.15 in 1998 to 2.16 this year (and from 75th place to 24th). Unfortunately this masks a poor performance in one crucial area - the fiscal burden - where we now actually score slightly worse than we did in 1998 (4.1 as opposed to 4). The government has clearly not treated this as a priority, and this has been reflected in mediocre GDP growth over the period (although this is due to other factors also, including the fact that our economy is having trouble making the switch from one that competes on prices - in both industry and tourism - to one that delivers high added-value). This year's pre-budget document offers little hope that there will be a serious change of direction in the fiscal field.

The greatest disappointment so far has, however, probably been with regard to illegal immigration. One of the most important, and little noticed, decisions taken by this government over the past few years has been to establish a de facto 18-month limit on detention for illegal immigrants, giving them an obvious incentive not to cooperate with the authorities in their repatriation. It is impossible to estimate exactly the price we may eventually have to pay for this (failed) attempt to appease foreign and local left-wing NGOs. Its consequences are so open-ended that it may well outweigh the government's modest achievements in other areas. Were the MLP to promise to reverse it even Pietru Caxaru might be tempted to do the unthinkable.