Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546283
Clint Azzopardi Flores: 'You cannot leave the free market function at will' 4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 AUGUST 2026 INTERVIEW CLINT Azzopardi Flores is an economist with the added ex- perience of having worked in the Brussels bureaucracy for the Maltese government. From Bormla, he unsuc- cessfully contested the 2024 European election but was elected to the national parlia- ment last June despite being a latecomer to the race. "Parliament should be there to find compromise on issues of national importance; we should seek what unites us more than what divides us," he tells me matter-of-factly when I ask him how parlia- mentary life is. His is a call for maturity modelled pretty much on how diplomats and officials in Brussels go about achiev- ing successful outcomes. In a more polarised environment like the Maltese parliament compromise may be difficult but he insists there have been occasions in the past when politicians on both sides rose above partisan considerations because the matter at hand was of national importance. I ask about economic growth and the impact this is now having on the community. Inevitably, I raise the issue of short-let apartments. Azzopardi Flores says the problem is not economic growth but whether some sectors have reached their peak. He believes public pol- icy and government direction are needed to redirect or limit certain activity. He propos- es an age cut-off for holiday flat rentals to push the young, unruly crowd out of the pic- ture. He also has no problem if owners of short-let apart- ments are made to pay a high- er charge for the disturbance they are causing to neigh- bours: "Otherwise, we do not have social justice." Clint Azzopardi Flores contested his first national election last June and was elected on the Labour Party ticket. He sits down with Kurt Sansone to discuss economic growth, holiday f lats, subsidies, higher charges on the rich and social justice