Maltese voters living abroad will be offered subsidised flights to enable them to vote in Malta on June 8, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has confirmed.

New national airline KM Malta will make flights available to those eligible to vote at a cheaper rate on its scheduled services. The airline flies to 15 destinations.

“The government will pay for the subsidies,” Caruana said when contacted by Times of Malta. Details of the flights will be announced in the coming days, he said.

Malta is one of just four EU member states, along with Ireland, Czechia and Slovakia, that does not allow any form of overseas voting. For several years, the government has subsidised Maltese voters residing overseas to catch a flight to vote in person in Malta.

It was unclear whether this policy would continue after Air Malta ceased operations and replaced with the new flag carrier, KM Malta Airlines.

For the 2022 general election, Air Malta offered eligible Maltese voters a €90 return ticket, leaving the government with a bill of €1.9 million for the service.

The system has been repeatedly criticised, including by outgoing Labour MEP Alfred Sant, who said it was “archaic and wasteful of public funds” but should remain until a better solution is found.

Labour had promised during the 2013 election campaign that voters would be able to vote at embassies abroad but the pledge has never materialised and was dropped from the party’s 2022 manifesto.

Maltese people living abroad have repeatedly appealed to the government to make voting easier for them, suggesting proxy voting, postal voting or overseas ballot boxes, which are used in other countries. Belgium, France and the Netherlands allow proxy voting while Estonia is the only member state to allow its citizens to vote online.

Malta goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in the European Parliament and local council elections.