Norman Aquilina has welcomed the finance minister’s statement that Monday’s budget will be his favourite, reading it as a sign that the government means to tackle reforms it has long put off. Aquilina is holding his final judgement until 27th October, when the measures can be weighed against that claim.

The minister, Aquilina noted, framed the budget as his favourite not because it gives more but because it would at last address long-overdue policy reforms. Aquilina called that a powerful admission that sets high expectations. If earlier budgets overlooked what is now being fixed, he argued, this one must be a budget of structural courage, placing productivity before distribution, enterprise before entitlement and future before applause.

His central complaint is that successive budgets have been populist and politically safe, yet strategically short. A generation, he wrote, has been taught to wait for the next budget handout, when the aim should have been a culture of enterprise, upskilling and resilience. He asked where the long-term economic vision sits that would move Malta from indiscriminate to sustainable growth.

Aquilina set out the shift he wants the budget to make: from giving to governing, from benefits to bold reforms, from consumption to competitiveness and from continuity to transformation. Such a budget, he said, would lay the foundation for the next decade. He added that he hopes the minister’s favourite budget becomes Malta’s most needed and that it signals greater productivity from the government, which he said clearly needs to get leaner.

The intervention follows earlier commentary in which Aquilina pressed the government to give Budget 2027 genuine strategic weight by showing measurable progress against the Vision 2050 transformation plan, rather than defaulting to continuity measures that leave the big picture untouched. He has argued that last year’s declaration describing Vision 2050 as a transformation plan with a clear implementation framework and defined targets now demands a concrete follow-up.

Business organisations and industry leaders have been pressing the government to prioritise productivity, investment and long-term competitiveness, with proposals ranging from corporate tax reductions to financial incentives for artificial intelligence adoption.