The fact that we’re seeing increased expenditure on the environment will help to improve wellbeing, which is critically important. This will also give an economic boost, economist Philip von Brockdorff told theJournal.mt.
Von Brockdorff was reacting to the Labour manifesto’s particular focus on wellbeing, on theDailySpot #20.
On Friday, the Labour Party approved its manifesto, featuring 1000 proposal, with a new focus on mental health, climate change, urban regeneration and our society’s wellbeing at large.
“If there is more investment on renewable energy, and therefore a reduction in emissions, that will also help to improve the wellbeing of the population. Wellbeing can actually be a motor for initiative, for business, for investment and therefore can boost economic growth,” von Brockdorff said.
The fact that we’re seeing increased expenditure on the environment will help to improve wellbeing.
He added that this emphasis on wellbeing is perfectly in line with the direction set by the EU.
“It falls very well with the direction of the European Union, in terms of the European Pillar for Social Rights, where there is a lot of emphasis on wellbeing, which should be taken into consideration in terms of the economic and social direction of Member States,” he said.
Labour’s manifesto contains 288 pages with 1,000 proposals, divided across 20 chapters. It is dominated by five keywords, which have been mentioned almost 1,200 times.
- More / better – 432
- To enable – 380
- Children / Young people – 147
- Environment / Sustainability – 118
- Elderly / pensioners – 101
Asked about the sustainability of the €3.3 billion manifesto, von Brockdorff said that economic growth, and the fact that this would be covered over a 5-year period should be taken into consideration.
“One has to assume that the economy will continue to grow as it has grown actually last year, not at 9.4% as it was last year because obvously that is compared to the baseline of 2020, it was expected to be an extraordinary level of growth, but certainly
“One would assume we’re looking at 4%, possibly even 5% expected growth over the next five years. Given that there will be this kind of level of growth, then obvously that will mean more revenue, in terms of tax revenue because of increased consumption and also investment,” he said.
Von Brockdorff added that this would help to boost revenues to enable Government to proceed with these kind of incentives, and in terms of increased benefits, to pensioners, but also across the board in terms of the population.
