Maltese are fairly optimistic about the coming year, according to a new survey by Eurobarometer, which found they were twice as likely to expect a positive economic situation than their EU counterparts.
Two-fifths of Maltese think the country’s economic situation will improve during 2019.
Roughly the same amount of Maltese, 44 per cent, said they expected the country’s economy to remain stable over the next 12 months, with just six per cent saying they thought it would get worse.
Meanwhile, 39 per cent of Maltese said they expected life in general to get better over the next year, while 50 per cent said they expected it to remain unchanged.
Asked about their own personal financial situation, about a quarter of Maltese expected this to improve over 2019, while 64 per cent said they thought it would remain steady. Some 41 per cent said the employment situation would improve on the island and a fifth expected their own working conditions to get better.
Asked about their assessment of things as they stand, a fifth of Maltese said the overall situation in Malta was “very good”, while 65 per cent said it was “rather good”. On the other hand, a one in 10 described it as “rather bad”, while two per cent said it was “very bad”.
As for the economy, 95 per cent described it as good, with just three per cent saying it was doing poorly.
Three in four Maltese are happy with their current job situation and 92 per cent were happy with the overall situation in their household.
Meanwhile, the percentage of those who trust the government in Malta went up a whopping 12 points since spring to reach 63 per cent, the highest among EU states.
54 per cent don’t trust political parties
The number of those who ‘tend not to trust’ the government went down since spring, also by 12 percentage points, with the ‘do not knows’ staying at the same 12 per cent level.
Shortly after the publication of the results, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat lauded the numbers in a tweet, saying the Maltese were the most convinced about the direction being taken in their country.
Trust in Parliament rose by an even higher amount, 17 points, to 59 per cent, while those who said they ‘tend not to trust’ went down by 13 points, leaving 13 per cent who said they did not know how to feel about their MPs.
In stark contrast, political parties still fared quite badly in spite of improvements, with only 36 per cent saying they trusted them and 54 per cent saying they tended not to trust them.
Trust in the legal system also improved, by nine points to 49 per cent, with the ‘tend not to trust’ improving by six points to 42 per cent.
The written press did not make any inroads, with its 32 per cent trust rating only up by one point. The majority – 45 per cent – say they tend not to trust newspapers.
Over two-thirds of the population trust the police, with the category improving by 15 points and only 26 per cent saying they tended not to trust.