The government is revising Air Malta documentation one last time before passing it on to the European Commission, because once the conditions are agreed upon, Malta must adhere to them and there is no going back, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana told reporters on Monday.
The Commission has asked Malta to prepare detailed plans on the way forward for the national airline, Caruana said.
The work is done but officials are going over it to ensure that all is accurate before sending it to Brussels 'next week'.
"I hope we will be able to announce the results of this discussion soon, but I will not comment further before the negotiations with the Commission are concluded," Caruana reiterated.
"The Commission requires us to submit laborious documentation which takes into account several scenarios that might impact the company. We need to be sure that we will be able to honour the agreement we are getting into, because then there is no way back."
He also addressed the uncertainties that Air Malta workers may be presently feeling, saying that what the government is doing is fully in their interest, the company and the country - to ensure that Malta can continue to have a national airline.
Clyde Caruana was speaking during a PL press conference with Social Dialogue Parliamentary Secretary Andy Ellul.
The two called the press conference to list the government's initiatives which, over the past years, strengthened the economy, cushioned energy prices, helped save businesses from the blow of the pandemic and the Ukraine war, reduced unemployment, and enhanced workers' rights and work-life balance, they said.
The government and the European Commission are currently going through an arduous, last round of meetings over Malta's application to pump millions of euros in state aid to save the national airline.
It looks like the discussions, which will likely come to an end by the beginning of summer, will lead the EU to forbid the government from pumping any more money into Air Malta and force it to close down the airline and open a new one, with a new business plan that would allow it to take in state aid from the government and become commercially feasible within a number of years.
But despite being pressed by reporters, Caruana refused to go into further detail over whether the airline will close to make way for a new flag carrier, or any other details on the discussions with the European Commission.
Last month, Caruana also refused to discuss the matter in parliament for the same reason, causing Opposition MPs to walk out of the chamber in protest.
Opposition leader Bernard Grech had demanded an immediate parliamentary debate after Times of Malta quoted the airline’s chairman as saying that the airline would close down by the end of the year and would be seamlessly replaced by another one.
A few days before, news had emerged that the Commission is set to turn down the government’s request for an injection of state aid into the long-struggling national airline.
Air Malta received its last government injection in 2012 but it had run into financial difficulty by 2020, eight years later.
Furthermore, it has not been able to become commercially feasible.
Two years ago, Malta asked Brussels for permission to pump €290 million into the airline in a last-ditch attempt to save it. It had suggested a five-year state aid financing plan which it said would help turn the airline into a sustainable, profit-making enterprise.
The airline had been suffering losses which were made exponentially worse when the pandemic brought most air travel to a halt. Minister Caruana had said it was making losses of over €170,000 daily just to operate its aircraft.
Last year, he then announced plans to slash the airline’s workforce by half as part of a major restructuring plan to save it, saying the exercise “could very well be Air Malta’s last chance”.