I read with great interest Matthew Farrugia’s article on MaltaToday of 16th March reflecting on the proposals that shaped Malta over the past thirteen years. It made me pause on a different question.Not what defined the last decade. But what should define the next one.If I were ever given the honour to serve as Prime Minister, what would I want a serious journalist to write in 2037 about the Malta we built together?Not what slogans we used. Not what arguments we won. Not what headlines we chased.But what changed in the lives of our people. This is what politics means to me – making positive changes that matter in people’s lives.Would they write that Malta simply got bigger? Would they write that it kept growing but became harder to live in? Would they write that people earned more but enjoyed life less? Would they write that the country became richer while families became more tired, more rushed, more stuck in traffic, more anxious about the next thing, their health, housing and time?Or would they write something better?Would they write that Malta entered a new phase of maturity — that it remained ambitious, remained open, remained economically successful, but finally learned how to grow with more intelligence, more balance and more respect for daily life?That is the real question before us.This is not about looking ten years ahead, as it sounds visionary. It is about understanding that every government leaves behind a pattern. A rhythm. A way of life. And that if a government lasts a decade, it does not simply administer a country. It reshapes it. By giving an economic and even a social identity.If Malta were judged in 2037, what should it be praised for?Malta’s challenge is not whether it can grow. It can. It has. It will.The deeper challenge is whether it can keep growing in a way that leaves people genuinely better off in real life, and not just for a moment, but in the long run.Too many people feel that the country has become more difficult to live in. Harder to move through. More expensive to navigate. More tiring to endure. Services exist, but too often they take too much effort. Work is available, but too often it leaves too little time. Economic success is visible, but too often it is accompanied by crowding, pressure, and loss of ease.This is a pro-growth argument. It is the argument that growth must now become much better.Because no serious political party should aspire to negative growth. A country does not move forward by retreating into decline and becoming regressive. Jobs matter. Investment matters. Enterprise matters. Equal and just opportunity matters.A mature country also understands that the next stage of progress is not measured only in more activity. It is measured in how that activity is managed, what it leaves behind, and how it improves the lives of the people who carry it.A country is not successful when people spend all day navigating friction and return home too drained to enjoy the lives they are working for.A successful country is one where, after a day’s work, people can still feel that life belongs to them.A New Idea of Progress: What questions should Malta ask?Malta’s economy has been undeniably successful in creating growth, jobs, and wealth. But Malta has also reached a turning point. This very success now demands a more mature question: how do we make prosperity feel better, last longer, and weigh less heavily on daily life?For years, politics was dominated by one central promise: more growth, more jobs, more income, more movement. That promise mattered. It answered real needs. It changed the lives of many people. It gave families security and businesses confidence. No serious person should deny that.But once a country reaches a certain level of economic momentum, the questions change.People are asking: what kind of growth? At what cost? For whose benefit? With what effect on the places we live, the time we have, the services we use, the roads we travel, the homes we buy, the health we carry, the stress we absorb?That is where Malta now stands.The next political argument cannot simply be between those who want growth and those who do not. It has to be between two different ideas of progress.One idea says: keep pushing the same model harder.The other says: preserve dynamism, but redesign the model so that it gives back more to daily life.I believe Malta is ready for the second.Our Future, Our Blueprint: How can we improve Malta’s direction?If I return to that journalist writing about Malta in 2037, I do not want them to say that the country spent another ten years moving from one external pressure to the next, mistaking reaction for direction. External shocks are part of the world we live in, and any serious government must know how to steer through them. Malta’s next decade cannot be defined only by what happens around us. It must be defined by what we decide to build for ourselves.I would want them to say that Malta’s success is deliberate.That it improved public services so that people spent less time chasing what should have worked from the start.That it shifted healthcare closer to prevention and the community, rather than allowing everything to end up under greater pressure at hospital level.That it made it easier for young people and families to build a future without making housing feel permanently out of reach.That it started treating transport not as an unavoidable national punishment, but as a practical quality-of-life issue that demanded real change.That it gave pensioners greater dignity and more freedom to enjoy the years they had worked for.That it became easy to run a business, easy to innovate, easy to invest, and easy to work productively without always adding more physical pressure to the island.That government respected the fact that Malta is small, and therefore cannot solve every challenge by expanding volume forever.Most of all, I would want them to write that Malta learned how to become more valuable, not simply more intense.Building on what has been doneThere are, of course, different ways of seeing the country’s future.One view says the current model should simply continue, because it has delivered visible economic gains and because any attempt to rebalance it risks slowing momentum.Another view responds with anger, as though the only answer is to stop, freeze, resist and retreat.I believe both of these are incomplete. The choice is not between acceleration without balance and resentment without direction.The real choice is whether we are prepared to govern Malta as it is now, not as it was ten or fifteen years ago.That means accepting two truths at the same time: first, that prosperity matters and must be defended; second, that prosperity which overwhelms everyday life eventually weakens the very public confidence on which it depends.The task of leadership is to hold those truths together.A Better Governing ModelSo what would I want written in 2037?I would want it said that Malta became easier to live in.That should not sound modest. It is, in fact, a profound ambition.A country becomes easier to live in when services work. When systems connect. When care arrives earlier. When bureaucracy is cut back. When taxes are clearly put to good use. When roads are safer and journeys more predictable. When homes are more comfortable and efficient. When businesses skip the paperwork to focus on growth. When technology is used to remove friction.This is the governing model I believe in. Not a colder state, but a smarter one. Not a smaller economy, but a better one. Not less ambition, but more discipline in how ambition is carried out.From Quantity to QualityThe next decade for Malta should be focused on shifting from a quantity economy to a quality economy.That means an economy that leaves more dividends here, in people’s pockets, offering more time and peace of mind, while placing less strain on land, services, and daily life.It means using modern tools and technologies not as ornaments, but as instruments to make:Healthcare more preventiveTransport more manageablePublic administration more responsiveEnergy more efficientEconomic growth less dependent on sheer physical intensityIt means building a country where progress is felt in the ordinary moments of life, not only in national statistics.That is why the PN’s promise will not be built around abstract promises. It will be built around decisions. Decisions that answer the real tests people apply to politics:Will this leave me with more money or less strain?Will this save me time?Will this make life healthier or calmer?Will this make the state work better?Will this help Malta grow with less pressure and more value?Answering the right questionsOver the coming months, I will be setting out a number of practical proposals that speak directly to those questions.Some will deal with money in the home; some with health and prevention; some with housing, comfort and dignity; some with transport, time and public services; and some with the economy itself and how we modernise it without making Malta harder to live in.They are not isolated ideas. They are pieces of one national direction.If we get this right, the Malta of 2037 will not be remembered merely as a country that kept going.Malta will be remembered as a country that grew up.A country that remained competitive without becoming careless.A country that embraced technology without losing its humanity.A country that improved prosperity without treating pressure as the unavoidable price of progress.A country that made life feel more navigable, more dignified and more its own again.If we get it wrong, then the future article writes itself too easily. It will say that Malta had every advantage — talent, energy, location, resilience, adaptability — but mistook motion for direction and intensity for success. That is not the future I want for this country.So when I ask what I would want written in 2037, my answer is this:I would want it written that Malta entered a new era in which progress and economic growth became something people could finally feel — not only in national accounts, but in their homes, on their roads, in their health, in their work, and in the peace of mind with which they ended each day.That is the Malta I believe we should build.•