(Adds lifting of industrial action this afternoon and unions' reaction to government statement)

Trade unions which represent the academic staff at the University said this afternoon that they had suspended all industrial action.

They lifted their action hours after the government in a statement said it was ready to present its counter-proposals on a new collective agreement as soon as all directives were lifted.

The unions had directed their members not to submit exam results. They partially lifted their action yesterday by allowing the filing of exam results of final year students.

"As agreed in detail shortly after the conciliation meeting held yesterday 24th June, the Malta Union of Teachers and the University of Malta Academic Staff Association are suspending all directives at the University and at the Junior College effective this afternoon. Both unions are now awaiting counter-proposals from the University in the next hour as also agreed yesterday," the unions said.

In its statement the government said it was well known that it did not hold talks with unions while industrial action was still in force.

It also revealed that last December, as a gesture of good will, it had reached an interim agreement through which the academic staff had been granted a wage increase which amounted to 13.5 percent of the salary of lecturers.

That had been done so that the collective agreement could continue to be negotiated without pressure.

The unions in a reaction tot he government statement said they were astonished that the government, at such a delicate stage in the ongoing negotiations, decided to issue "a misleading statement that appears designed to put the nation's academic body into disrepute.

"In 2001, the government itself had pegged the academic staff salaries to certain scales in the civil service. As the government well knows, the interim increase referred to in their press release was effectively a one-time adjustment meant to bring academic salaries back in line with these same scales, after they had fallen behind during these previous five years, and also considering that the collective agreement had expired in 2003," the unions said.

They said statements such as that by the government were fruitless and led nowhere.