The government will be forking out a million euros in energy subsidies every day next year to keep prices stable, the Prime Minister said on Sunday. 

Without the subsidies, every Maltese family would have been forced to pay €3,000 extra in fuel, water and electricity bills - more than €8 for every day of the year, Robert Abela told presenter Manuel Micallef during an interview on the PL's television, radio and social media channels.

"That's the burden the Nationalist Party would have shoved on the Maltese people if it were in government," he said.

"Utility bills and unemployment went up during a PN administration, and economic growth went down, and it took us years to recover from that stagnation."

During Monday's budget speech, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana announced energy subsidies will be maintained for another year at a cost of €350 million. Caruana said without the subsidy, the average family would be paying double what it is paying now. 

On Sunday, Abela insisted that despite their huge cost, the subsidies remain the best investment to keep the economy alive and active.

The cost of not subsidising energy would be far worse, he said. Businesses would close, people would be laid off and economic growth would halt, or even take a nosedive.

But the budget also planned for a longer-term energy vision, Abela told Micallef. The country and its businesses needed to invest in diverse energy sources and start generating electricity through renewable sources and offshore farms, for instance, to allow it to have more control over the security of supply and stability of prices in the future.

Sunday's interview revolved almost entirely around this week's budget, with Abela hailing it as a success that was born out of meetings with people from across society, and designed in the surreal reality of high inflation.

He said it addressed the subject people are most concerned with - the rising cost of living - while maintaining subsidies, strengthening social benefits, raising pensions and the minimum wage, children's allowance and many other measures.

"Everyone thought we would come up with an austere budget, but we came out with strong social measures to help everyone, especially to boost the working class and the middle class," Abela told Micallef.

He also hailed the "unprecedented" minimum wage raise, saying he was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the government managed to strike a deal with the social partners and that his only disappointment was that Bernard Grech did not show up for the signing ceremony, despite having been invited.   

"Even (former PN leader) Simon Busuttil had showed up to a similar signing in 2017," Abela said.

He also spoke about how the additional COLA mechanism was widened to reach double the number of people it reached last year, insisting this was in no way an indication that poverty is on the rise.

On the contrary, EU figures show poverty has "declined substantially", he said.

"We broadened the measure because we believe we should help the working and middle classes have better social mobility and to include more people who could benefit," he said.

"And people can rest assured they will continue to get it every year, as long as the PL remains in government, of course, because I guess things would be different if the PN is trusted to run the country."

He also hit out at the PN for attempting to shift the focus off the budget and for being only obsessed with getting people investigated by the police and throwing them before the courts and in prison.

After last year's pre-budget document that was "a mess", he said, the PN did not even bother to issue one this year.

On the contrary, the government continues to offer a social budget at a time when the world is facing major challenges.

"With the pandemic and the Ukraine and Middle East wars, we faced a generation's worth of challenges compressed in three years," he said.

"But out of challenges are born opportunities, and we will turn each hardship into prosperity for the people."