Social partners believe they are not being taken seriously when the government has called just two meetings to discuss the Budget, with one union describing the exercise as a “simulation of meaningful discussions”.

The social partners, who sit on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, were informed on Tuesday that the MCESD would convene twice to discuss the forthcoming Budget, which is expected to be read out by the Finance Minister on October 25.

They said that two meetings were too few to discuss the whole Budget and a far cry from the marathon meetings held prior to Budget 2010, which saw the majority of social partners welcoming Budget measures with open arms. They said they were still in the process of producing their budget proposals.

When contacted, the government said that should there be the need, more meetings would be held.

But a statement issued by the Chamber of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise suggested the government would need to do more to placate their anger. The chamber expressed “utter dismay” that the pre-budget consultation had been “reduced to just two meetings”.

In letters to MCESD chairman Sonny Portelli and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, the chamber said two meetings were “certainly not sufficient and did not do justice to such a matter of key national importance as is the Budget”.

It said that no serious consultation could take place in such a short time frame. “The chamber feels the government is not taking social dialogue seriously and is thus only paying lip service to social dialogue and consultation”.

Contacted for their positions, the general secretaries of the two main unions agreed with the chamber’s position.

“We are very disappointed with the way things are being conducted at MCESD level. How can we go through a whole process in just two meetings? This is social dialogue just to say it was done. This is a simulation of meaningful discussions,” Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin general secretary Gejtu Vella said angrily.

His views were echoed by his counterpart at the General Workers’ Union, Tony Zarb, who pointed out that the meetings had been called when the council’s sub-committees set up to discuss specific issues which had a bearing on the budget, had not yet finished their reports.

He said the original idea was that the three sub-committee reports would be discussed by all social partners who would then fuse them into one report to present to the government.

“This is not serious and genuine social dialogue,” he said.

Vince Farrugia, the director general of the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU, said that before discussing the budget for next year, the social partners should be presented with a post-mortem of this year’s. He insisted that many of the measures announced had not been implemented, such as the micro credit scheme for businesses.

“Just two meetings is simply ridiculous. It’s a fait accompli. Usually we spend two months discussing. This is a tremendous worry for us and it makes us very angry,” he said.

The Director General of the Malta Employers’ Association, Joe Farrugia, said pre-Budget meetings were as important as social partners putting forward their proposals.

The discussion should have started long ago, he said, adding that even setting meetings so close to the budget was not making sense.

A Finance Ministry spokesman yesterday evening said the ­Ministry acknowledged the importance of the pre-budget consultation process and was committed to holding further meetings should the need arise.

He said the ministry had been trying to set dates for meetings for a number of weeks but common dates could not be found due to different commitments of some social partners.