Malta’s Next Central Bank Chief? Alexander Demarco Set to Take the Helm

Alexander Demarco, the softly-spoken lawyer who has spent the last seven years whispering monetary policy into the Prime Minister’s ear, is odds-on to become the next Governor of the Central Bank of Malta when Governor Edward Scicluna’s non-renewable term expires in June. The whispers started in Valletta’s coffee houses, migrated to the law courts of Republic Street, and are now shouted across the Facebook comment sections that pass for Malta’s public square. If the Cabinet note circulating this week is accurate, Demarco will swap his Castille desk for the sandstone fortress overlooking the Grand Harbour, taking charge of the institution that prints the euros we fish out of our Sunday-best purses and feed into the parking meters that guard our village festa confetti.

For an island that still measures wealth in sea-view apartments and rabbit-stew Sundays, the identity of the central-bank governor carries a cultural weight bigger than the job description suggests. We Maltese may argue over football and political colours, but we share a sixth sense for economic weather. Our grandparents hid gold sovereigns under floor tiles; our parents flipped London flats; we scroll Sotheby’s International at 2 a.m. So when a new custodian of interest rates is chosen, even the village grocer re-arranges the pastizzi display with extra care, as though the price of ricotta itself might rise before lunchtime.

Demarco, 52, is as Maltese as a midsummer power cut: born in Birkirkara, educated at St Aloysius’ College, fluent in Italian courtroom Latin and in the dialectical swearing of Għaxaq farmers. He cut his legal teeth advising the Malta Developers Association, a credential that makes environmentalists reach for their megaphones and construction tycoons reach for their champagne. Yet colleagues describe a man who quotes Dun Karm Psaila in budget hearings and who still plays five-a-side with the same Rabat squad he captained at 17. In short, he is one of us—just one who happens to understand why the European Central Bank’s deposit facility rate matters more to your mortgage than your mother-in-law’s opinion.

The timing is delicate. Inflation has finally crept into the price of ħobż biż-żejt; tourists are booking three nights instead of six; and the national debt, if stacked in €50 notes, would probably reach the Madonna statue on the Mellieħa basilica. Meanwhile, Malta’s grey-list shadow has only just lifted, and Brussels keeps asking why our banks still smell like passport ink. Choosing a governor, then, is not a technocratic shrug but a national coming-of-age moment: can we park our tribal reflexes and allow competence to trump colour?

Street reactions map the usual fault lines. “Tal-Labour qalbu” mutters the PN-leaning kiosk owner in Sliema, convinced Demarco will keep printing stimulus until the cranes outnumber the swallows. “At least he’s not another dusty economist who thinks Gozo is a suburb,” counters the young blockchain analyst grabbing Kinnie at Malta International Airport. Over at the University, students who cut lectures to day-trade crypto celebrate the prospect of a governor who once argued that innovation should be regulated, not strangled. Their grandmothers, clutching BOV shares bought in the 1990s, worry he might finally force banks to pay negative interest—whatever that means—for the privilege of looking after their life savings.

Yet beneath the partisan noise lies a deeper Maltese truth: we trust faces more than institutions. We clap in church when the priest mentions our street; we wave at the helicopter pilot who airlifted our neighbour; we still speak of “the governor” in the same breath as “the doctor who brought you into this world.” If Demarco, with his village-football humility, can translate Frankfurt jargon into something that makes sense over ftira, he will do more than steer monetary policy—he will knit another thread into the national tapestry that keeps this rock stitched together.

When the appointment is confirmed, expect the cannon on the Upper Barrakka to echo twice: once for the outgoing governor, once for the island that keeps reinventing itself without ever quite leaving the harbour. The euro in your pocket will still jingle the same, but the story we tell about it will have a new protagonist. And in Malta, the story is everything.