The leaders of the two major political parties will not make their MEP candidates disclose how much they spent on their election campaign before Saturday's vote.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said there were still some days to go before the election and he did not want somebody to give a figure and then spend more money before polling day.
His counterpart uncharacteristically echoed what he said.
The Labour leader Joseph Muscat said he would be insisting that all MEP candidates conformed to existing laws on election financing but only after Saturday's vote, saying it was "useless" to do so beforehand.
"From experience it is only after the election campaign is over that one gets the full picture of expenses incurred. It would be useless issuing declarations now," he said, adding that in the parliamentary select committee he would be pursuing a reform of political party financing including individual candidate financing during elections.
But even a superficial assessment of the media advertising and promotional material in the public domain leads to the conclusion that a number of candidates have surpassed the legal limit on expenditure.
Legally, these candidates will be left with two options when the campaign is over: Either take a false oath or make a false declaration of expenses.
Electoral law stipulates that each individual candidate can spend up to €1,400 per district, which would translate to €18,200 for the European Parliament election when all of Malta and Gozo are considered to be one big district.
In fact, most of the 33 EP candidates on both sides of the fence failed to disclose their finances when questioned by The Sunday Times.
Labour's candidates mostly ignored the request. But the Nationalist MEPs were actually directed not to disclose this information - a directive which was inadvertently revealed by candidate Vince Farrugia, who forwarded an e-mail sent by the party's EP campaign chief with the instructions.
The e-mail, penned by Stefano Mallia, told candidates to say: "I am very taken up with the demands of the election campaign" and so am unable to give "a comprehensive and proper account of the expenses incurred for the election campaign which is still underway... Once the election is over I will ensure that all accounts are properly done."
When contacted, Dr Mallia refused to comment on the e-mail and simply repeated: "I'm not a PN official".
The Prime Minister on the other hand denied his party had issued instructions to MEP candidates.
"What the e-mail said was that details would be given after the elections are over," he said, pointing out that two of the party's candidates - Rudolph Cini and Alan Deidun - had in fact published their spend.
But this version was contradicted by the man who forwarded the e-mail, Vince Farrugia, who said, when asked why he did not publish his expenses, that he was "simply following the party's instructions".
About the gaffe itself, Mr Farrugia added: "Maybe I should have been given better instructions to be careful," pointing out that he was keeping a closer eye on his e-mails now.
He said although he did not think the party was happy about his blunder, he had "not really" received any reactions from the PN and had even sent his apologies to Dr Mallia about it.
The PN too denied that it was "in any way engaging its candidates to lack of transparency".
A spokesman for the party said it was standard practice for a party to coordinate interim replies to journalists during a campaign.
"The contents of the mail do not instruct candidates to keep their expenses undisclosed. On the contrary, the same mail advises all the PN candidates to disclose and submit, at a more practical time, a comprehensive and proper account of the expenses incurred for the election campaign," he said.
The spokesman said Dr Mallia was part of the team engaged by the PN to coordinate and manage particular areas related to the EP campaign and his mail was sent within the parameters of his remit.