Leading Maltese pensions expert David Spiteri Gingell has advised third-country national workers to go on a week-long general strike in protest at the recent Budget measures.

Mr Spiteri Gingell said the Government’s Budget measures reflect sustained political pressure, fuelled by the PN, against third-country nationals despite their importance to the Maltese economy.

“Our population is ageing. Malta’s fertility rate has collapsed to well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, reaching levels among the lowest in Europe,” he said.

“Education and upward occupational mobility have transformed the jobs Maltese workers seek. TCNs now sustain essential sectors of our economy. This is not ideology. It is economic reality.”

Mr Spiteri Gingell said TCNs have become so crucial to the Maltese economy that the system would be severely impacted if they go on strike for just one week.

“Consider Malta without TCN labour for one week.”

“Shops would close. Public transport would be severely disrupted. Hospitals and elderly residences would struggle to function. Hotels, restaurants and bars would lose operating capacity. Construction, manufacturing, cleaning, logistics and delivery services would face major disruption,” he said.

“The consequences would extend throughout the economy.”

“My advice to the TCN Alliance and trade unions representing TCNs is unequivocal: organise a lawful, coordinated, week-long general strike by TCN workers. Not one day. One full week.

“Malta needs to confront the reality of its dependence on workers whom political rhetoric increasingly portrays as dispensable, as a threat to Maltese identity, as a burden on our infrastructure and public services, and as the convenient scapegoats for the country's failures in planning, investment and governance.”

"Such action would carry serious consequences, particularly for vulnerable people dependent on essential services. Those risks must be managed responsibly.”

Mr Spiteri Gingell went on to say that Malta must also confront the contradiction of depending on TCNs to sustain its economy while allowing political hostility towards them to dictate national policy.

“For too long, the PN has helped normalise this hostility. Now the Government risks institutionalising it through policy,” he warned.

“The economic contribution of TCNs is documented. Yet evidence alone has evidently failed to penetrate the political narrative.”

“Perhaps only the experience of their absence will make the scale of that dependence understood.”

“A country that cannot function without these workers should confront what that means before treating them as expendable.”