Malta’s DEBT (Is it worse now under Labour or was it much worse during PN Years?!)

Many accuse me of leaning PN in my writings when I spell doom for the property Market and when I criticise the negative effects of too much tourism and too much development.

But I try to be as unbiased as possible, and in fact today I am going to present an interesting statistical timeline related to Government Debt in Malta.

Yes you may have read on the news that Debt is far worse now compared to last year and some eye-grabbing headline capture like that, but in reality the Debt under Labour is much better when taken into the real economic context.

Let me give you an example, imagine someone who bought a million dollar home and took a 100,000 euro loan, now compare that to someone who bought a 200,000 apartment but took a 100,000 euro loan. both have a 100,000 euro loan but which is worse? as a percentage one is far better than the other.

That is what we are seeing in the graph, it’s the DEBT to GDP Ratio, the graph shows that debt to gdp ratio under the PN administration at first, until around late 90’s was sustainable, a bit high but nothing to worry about, but during the 2000s until the 2013 election was high.

Now let’s take a look at the Labour administration Debt to GDP ratio which kept dropping year after year, until the COVID when the Gov had to increase it’s expenses considerably, but still nothing worrying.

In fact when we compare this to the Euro area as well it shows how Malta is faring much better than other EU countries too:

Malta: 46.2 % of GDP (2024)

Euro Area: 88.2% (as of Q2 2025)

European Union: 81.9% (as of Q2 2025)

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Source for the Maltese data (graph) : NSO

Source for the EU data : Eurostat