Hands up all those who are happy to receive a higher utility bill. Since I see no hands, I am safe to assume that people are not happy paying higher utility bills, regardless of whether fuel prices go up. And any government that wants to remain popular should logically seek to avoid decisions like raising utility tariffs.

So why is this government going down the hard and unpopular way by allowing higher utility bills?

To answer that question, don't turn to Joseph Muscat who will be joining the street protests against higher tariffs because there are big brownie points to be earned at the polls by opposing higher bills.

Indeed, the Labour leader even took the government to task because, as he put it, "utility bills had risen because of the government financial deficit". And he took exception to the Finance Minister's statement that the utility bills had to make good for the deficit so that Malta would not end up like Greece.

There are no two ways about it.

For Dr Muscat, it is ok to keep utility bills artificially low even if the public deficit goes up as a result. Far from being moderate or progressive, this policy is as dangerous as they come. Let us consider the implications.

Malta's deficit is just above the established limit of three per cent of GDP for eurozone countries. Most other eurozone members have even higher deficits, largely due to the impact of the economic crisis. But the worst in class is, no doubt, Greece, whose deficit is hovering at the astronomical level of about 12 per cent, dangerously out of control.

Only the other day, Malta was given the green light by the EU to bring its deficit back down to the required limits by the end of next year rather than this year. This gives our Finance Minister some leeway, but not much, to get our books in order.

But if Dr Muscat were Prime Minister today, he would be going down a different route by flouting our commitment to return the deficit back to its limits in order to cut utility rates. That would be bad news for our deficit but also bad news for all of us. And Greece is a textbook case of just how perilous this route would be.

A lot of ink has already flowed on the humiliating situation in which Greece finds itself today and I will not go into all the details. Suffice it to say that the country's Budget and its implementation are now being monitored with a fine-tooth comb in Brussels and the country's statistics are deemed wholly untrustworthy. That does not endear Greece well with investors that are responsible for job-creation.

All this has happened because Greece has been living for the day without any care in the world for tomorrow. And it has a track record of backing off in the face of painful reforms and of street protests. One government after another baulked at opposition to reform and failed to take difficult decisions at the appropriate time.

Indeed, when the Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, was leader of the opposition barely a few months ago, he was hardly supportive of the painful reforms that his predecessor wanted to push through. Street protests and virulent parliamentary opposition crippled the previous government and led to its downfall at the polls. The result? Under Mr Papandreou, reforms are not just inevitable but much more painful than ever. For starters, Greece has committed itself to cut its deficit by a full four percentage points in just one year. That's right - a full four per cent. Comparatively speaking, this is like wiping out Malta's entire deficit in just one year. The sacrifices that would be required from all of us to do that are hard to imagine.

Or are they? In Greece, this will be done by a series of measures ranging from cutting back on public benefits, public services and public investments, including essential ones, by increasing taxes and even by reducing public sector wages. The social costs on the Greek population will be higher than ever and it is likely that the Greek economy will find it even harder to bounce back from recession. It is a vicious circle and Greece is a clear example of where we should not be heading.

We are still in time to avoid going down the route of this Greek tragedy. But to do so, we must take the difficult decisions today in order to avoid more painful ones tomorrow.

So, yes, higher utility bills are not a popular decision. But public office is not about taking popular decisions. It is about taking the right ones.

Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.

www.simonbusuttil.eu