When the going is good, then expectations rise, something that Finance Minister Edward Scicluna undoubtedly knew when he sat down to write the Budget. The problem is that it is much harder to take something back if the situation ever turns downhill.

With a surplus promised for the second consecutive year and economic growth forecast at 5.6 per cent, it would have been so easy to make grand and benevolent gestures. Instead, it was a somewhat lightweight Budget, literally as it was some 50 pages shorter but also figuratively because there were no big projects announced, with only a few pages dedicated to health and education and only the seven-year plan for the roads promised to help bring the infrastructure up to scratch – with €40 million allocated to roads. This despite the fact that capital investment will be about €475 million, up from €408 million in 2017.

Instead, the minister dedicated a considerable portion of his speech to a plethora of measures ensuring that some money gets put into nearly everyone’s pockets, from minimum wage earners to pensioners, from foster parents to commuting students. Some are permanent – like the incremental increases in the minimum wage and pensions – while others are one-off, like the tax refunds, which are then much easier to reverse if the going ever gets tough.

This is all very much in line with his previous Budgets, designed with subtle measures to encourage a particular behaviour. An example of this are the various schemes through which owners have been encouraged to make property available – fighting rental inflation by increasing supply.

However, it is not only businesses and taxpayers that have high expectations. NGOs also expected far more to be announced on the environment and waste management, well beyond the collection of used plastic bottles. There is, for example, €20 million more being spent on the environment but it is not clear on what: €11 million more will go to Wasteserv (beyond collection) but less will be spent on parks and rural development.

There were no cuts in utility bills and hardly any measures that would indicate that the government is concerned about the economy’s competitiveness, in spite of lobbying to the contrary. Controversy over public holidays was sidestepped by offering an extra day’s leave to all, at least until consensus is reached with the social partners.

In the final paragraphs of his speech, the minister promised that hard decisions needed to be taken, sooner rather than later but he was clearly not thinking about the immediate future. Given the positive economic performance, it would have hardly been the time to raise the old spectres of cutting back on, say, student stipends, raising eco-contributions or having prescription charges.

No one wants to listen to predictions of doom when the sun is shining but economic cycles are almost inevitable and the Finance Minister cannot put off some hard decisions – on waste management, traffic, environment degradation, overdevelopment, inequality in wealth distribution – indefinitely. Polite tweaks will not always be enough to change behaviour.

One can only hope Adrian Delia will prove he has the mettle as the new Leader of the Opposition to be that naysayer, cajoling and criticising to ensure that the economic boom will leave Malta a better place for all. But he too has some hard and urgent decisions to make.