Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech on Sunday accused Prime Minister Robert Abela of hypocrisy when he voted in favour of increased spending on defence by the European Union after having attacked MEP Roberta Metsola for calling for the same thing.

Speaking in an interview on Net TV, Grech said that after an entire campaign targeting Metsola, the prime minister changed his position and voted with other EU leaders on the proposal during last week's European Council.

Abela's vote came after weeks of campaigning where he accused Metsola and the Opposition of wanting to send Maltese young people to war.

Grech insisted that Abela lacked principles and also lacked direction.

"Abela is upset by our candidates. Our position was clear from the outset that it would be wise for Europe to prepare for any eventuality and beef up our defence,” Grech said.

“In Malta, the prime minister says that our candidates are warmongers because they say that Europe needs to be better prepared for its own defence, then he goes to the European summit and agrees that Europe should invest in its defence,” Grech said.

“This is hypocrisy and the populism of a prime minister with no direction, changing position according to where he can score political points,” Grech added.

Grech also spoke about the cost of living and pensions, saying that the government could not guarantee pensions to today's workforce. The prime minister, he said, did not have a serious policy to move the country forward. The government also had no proper plan to tackle inflation and it could not control the cost of living.

He said that while the PN had offered the government solutions “on a silver platter”, the government did not to even consider them because they were ideas coming from the Nationalist Party.

Among those solutions was a measure that would stop taxing the cost-of-living adjustment, and the creation of a fund to help importers and exporters and buffer the impact of inflation.