Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this morning identified the infrastructure and the upkeep of public spaces as major challenges facing the government as it prepares to present the Budget 2016.

Speaking on One Radio, he said that the infrastructure was built for a country of 400,000, but, for example, in August, because of tourism, at any point of time there were almost 700,000 people on the island. The infrastructure was showing signs of being inadequate and needed to be improved. 

He said that the Budget, due to be presented tomorrow week, would, as in the past two years, focus on maintaining strong economic growth, job creation and higher living standards. It would be a Budget that would help the middle class, those who wanted to work and those who had not benefited enough so far from economic growth.

Dr Muscat said many parts of the Opposition's pre-Budget document were laughable, although there were some points which merited reflection.

Referring to the PN's call for debate on the introduction of second pillar pensions, he said the government did not want to raise social security contributions for workers and employers, as this measure implied.

The government also disagreed with PN proposals which would see energy tariffs fluctuate according to market movements.  Furthermore, he warned, the proposal to give value to ODZ land would fuel speculation. 

When he spoke on migration, Dr Muscat said the issue of compulsory burden sharing had now been settled because Malta and other countries had forced a debate and vote in the EU. At present, not many migrants were coming to Malta, and thus, out of a sense of solidarity Malta would receive 189 migrants from other countries over two years, a number which the country could handle. Should Malta have its own migration crisis, it would then expect the same sort of solidarity. 

Dr Muscat reiterated his call, made in the UN, for the burden sharing principle to be extended worldwide. At the same time, one could not have a situation where people felt they were free to migrate to any country. Those who did not qualify for asylum should be sent back. 

Those countries which refused their people back should be subject to sanctions and those who collaborated should be rewarded through assistance, Dr Muscat said.