Giorgio Borġ Olivier

Who was Giorgio Borġ Olivier?

Giorgio Borġ Olivier was a Maltese statesman and leading politician. Borġ Olivier was twice Prime Minister of Malta as the Leader of the Nationalist Party. He was also Leader of the Opposition between 1955 and 1958 and again between 1971 and 1977.

Borġ Olivier was elected as one of the three Nationalist members of the Council of Government in 1939. In May 1940, when the leader of the Nationalist party, Enrico Mizzi, was first interned by the British and deported, Borġ Olivier became interim leader. After his return, Mizzi made Borġ Olivier his right hand man and deputy. Rising to office as a protégé of Mizzi and Sir Ugo P. Mifsud, Borġ Olivier believed in the economic and social development of Malta as a viable independent state and in the necessity of a mixed economy. During his premiership, he pursued corporatist policies to develop the tourism industry and construction as the engine of growth. Under his leadership, average living standards rose steadily as Malta began to decouple from a fortress economy purely dependent on the British military establishment.