Editorial: Government’s inconvenient crisis

Every prime minister in the EU is confronting the formidable energy crisis. Some are working hard to minimise the burden on households and businesses while not pretending to have suddenly found the magic money tree. Others pander to populist aspirations and pretend that spiralling inflation and fiscal rectitude no longer matter.

Prime Minister Robert Abela has again resorted to political doublespeak – language that appears to be earnest and meaningful but is a mixture of sense and nonsense. He argues: “To reduce waste is desirable but it doesn’t work in such an easy way as saying you want to only help the lowest tranche of society, those that have the least.”

This defeatist attitude of the prime minister will lead to substantial fiscal problems in the coming years. A socially equitable solution may hurt some who feel entitled to consume as much subsidised energy as they want. However, this approach is not only possible but appropriate in the present difficult circumstances.

Malta’s per capita annual electricity consumption in 2021, according to the research website Statista, was 6,140 kilowatt hours. While this is one of the lowest in Europe, it is a good indicator of the...