PM suggests European Commission likely to impose excessive deficit procedure on Malta

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat strongly suggested this afternoon that the European Commission will likely issue excessive deficit procedures against Malta over its failure to keep its deficit below the EU threshold last year. Whether or not the Commission would be taking the action was now a "matter of semantics", Dr Muscat said at a press conference this afternoon. However, he said that the meetings with the Commission were "realistic and positive" adding that he was confident that with the government's present plan Malta's deficit would be brought back down to below three per cent. Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said yesterday that he had had a phone conversation with the EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olii Rhen on Tuesday and he complained that Malta was not being believed in its arguments - a situation for which he blamed the previous government for not keeping commitments made to the EU. (see http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130521/local/scicluna-says-malta-not-being-believed-in-talks-to-avoid-excessive-deficit-procedure.470677 ) The government had previously said that it was negotiating with the Commission to avoid the procedures, which will mean...