In its urge to fend off Nationalist Party criticism, Joseph Muscat’ s government is at times losing the sense of proportion that is required for a proper assessment of a given situation.

It is true that the new government has contributed to inject fresh confidence in the island’s economic environment. All new governments usually do this but, as this newspaper warned only a few days ago, it would be ill-advised to be euphoric over the rate of growth for last year.

It would be even worse if the improved economic performance leads to complacency.

There is no question that the island has done well. Gross domestic product for 2013 was even higher than that projected by the European Commission, up to 2.4 per cent. However, it would seem that the government’s reaction to the rise needs to be put in its proper perspective, too.

The government said the latest figures showed that growth last year accelerated during the nine months of the new government, when the real rate of growth grew to 2.6 per cent compared to between one per cent and 1.2 per cent over the same three quarters in 2011 and 2012.

However, while it is true that, as Times of Malta has already remarked, the new government injected new confidence, it is just as important to take into consideration the fact that Labour’s election to power a year ago coincided with a time when the euro area’s economy started to emerge from the recession.

That improvement in the eurozone has helped boost confidence in Europe which, in turn, led, for instance, to the increase in tourism.

So, it is a combination of factors that has contributed to improved performance, not any magic power or a drastic change of direction in the island’s economic and industrial policy.

It would have been disastrous if, on top of the blunders made by Labour in the first year of this legislature, it slipped up on the economic front as well. In fact, since Malta had managed to do relatively well during the recession, the island was well placed to start picking up from where it had left off before the recession.

This is very much unlike the situation in some other countries which, in the face of serious financial difficulties, had to be bailed out.

Malta did not need a bailout, although, most unfortunately, the manner in which the government projected its cash-for-passport scheme gave the impression that the island was in a financial crisis.

However, the fact that Malta did not need a bailout and that it had weathered the storm appears to be of no consequence to the Labour government, which is, at present, going all out to take all the credit for the improved performance.

However welcome the new indicators are, it would be wrong to continue giving the impression that everything will be plain sailing under Labour.

It would be nice if this proves to be the case but, in the scheme of things and with all the good intentions in the world, it is not a realistic possibility. Indeed, as the experts in Europe argue, the euro area’s economy is not out of the woods yet.

With the elections to the European Parliament getting closer, the country can expect more self-congratulation from the government. However, it will be self-defeating if this were to lull the country into a false sense of prosperity when, in reality, there are still a number of challenges that have yet to be met to improve living standards.