The 2025 budget, like the previous one, is strong on tactics to help families struggling with the cost-of-living concerns. These tactics were much needed and will help low- and middle-income families cope with inflationary pressures on their standard of living. Still, there is little evidence of a commitment to define the longer-term socio-economic ambitions beyond pious political rhetoric.

The budget measures relating to the minimum wage, tax band revisions, increase in pensions, children’s allowance, and support for parents who send their children to private schools give this budget a hallmark of social sensitivity. Fortunately, controversial measures like compulsory union membership for certain workers and a mandatory pension saving scheme were not introduced.

Still, the longer-term issues worrying many people have not been addressed with sufficient determination. Worryingly, we have heard very little about how the government intends to address the overpopulation issue that is stretching our public services to the limit.

The fuel subsidy, for instance, will continue to lead to waste of non-renewable energy and more congestion on our roads, resulting in pollution and more stress for the public. The government has missed the opportunity to make the fuel subsidy scheme more targeted to favour those families who need it most and more environmentally friendly.

Despite the usual mantra of wanting to direct the economy to more value-added activities, there is little tangible evidence of how this will be achieved. The rock base supporting the transition to more selective and better-performing economic ventures must be a reform of the education system, which continues to underperform. The qualifications-jobs gap continues to be a waste of human and financial resources. While a new collective agreement for educators is long overdue, it cannot improve educational achievements on its own.

The health system will get a boost thanks to the money voted to cut on waiting lists by farming out some of the more urgent medical interventions to the private sector hospitals.

The public health system cannot cope with the longer-term challenges of unproductive, wasteful past investment, an ageing local population, and the extraordinary population increase due to liberal human resources policies encouraging the mass importation of third-country nationals. Once again, the longer-term view on upgrading the services of the public health system has not been addressed.

Despite repeated sound bites on the need for quality rather than quantity to incentivise new high valued added economic activities, the budget is once again assuming that growth will continue coming from mass tourism, the construction industry, and local consumption.

This mindset will continue to be the primary concern of many who see their quality of life being eroded.

Traffic chaos on our roads, air and noise pollution from the building industry, the contamination of our seawater as the drainage system struggles to cope, and the encroachment on public spaces in our towns, villages and the countryside have become an endemic obstacle to people’s well-being.

The boost in the feel-good factor will undoubtedly be appreciated by many. The strategy that promotes living for today and letting tomorrow take care of itself may have biblical origins. Still, it is naïve to argue this is the best way to plan for our future.

The country needs political leaders with high ambitions for the present and future generations. Beyond political rhetoric, people want to hear how these ambitions can be translated through a realistic long-term action plan that sees them becoming a reality.

The 2025 budget, unfortunately, lacks much-needed long-term socio-economic ambitions.