Volt Malta wants next week’s budget to increase the minimum wage to €900 a month, start the process of covering all government buildings with solar panels and give students a financial incentive to learn about how to look after their money.

Those proposals are among the dozen-odd ideas that the fledgling political party has presented for Malta’s 2023 budget, which will be unveiled on Monday.

Its headline proposal – increasing the minimum wage – would see low-income earners add roughly €110 every month to their take-home pay. Malta’s minimum wage is calculated on a weekly basis and currently stands at €182 a week, which amounts to roughly €792 per month.

‘‘Malta’s minimum wage is one of the slowest growing in the EU,  hasn’t kept pace with the rising cost of living in years and facilitates the exploitation of the least paid of workers among us,’’ remarks Arnas Lasys. Volt Co-President ‘‘There is no evidence of an equivalent increase in inflation when minimum wages are raised.’’

Volt would also like to see all menstrual products made VAT-free, and stipends linked to financial literacy. The party’s proposal would see students get a stipends who complete a financial literacy course get a stipend boost. The idea, it said, is to raise a more fiscally responsible generation.

Other proposals presented by the party:

• Audit and performance review of all public sector, to trim expenditure fat
• Fund ‘Maltese as a foreign language’ courses for refugees, asylum seekers
• Fund programmes to teach Maltese & European cultural & civic norms
• Start the process of covering all public buildings in solar panels
• Step up public education about outdoor cleanliness
• Offer grants for vertical farms, green roofs, community gardens