Peter Agius and Adrian Delia put forward proposal to support Maltese consumers and businesses with online purchases following EU taxes on imports from China

Propose EU-funded scheme for free delivery in Malta

The European Union customs fee on imports from China, the United Kingdom and other third countries, which came into force this summer, has placed a significant burden on Maltese consumers and small businesses that depend on imports from outside the EU. The €3.54 charge per item will soon be compounded by an additional €2 per item handling fee, which is expected to come into force in November.

Commenting on these new burdens on Maltese consumers, Shadow Minister for Finance Adrian Delia said: “These new EU charges are placing an additional cost-of-living burden on the most vulnerable, including hundreds of families who turn to low-cost online shopping to help ease the impact of Malta’s rising cost of living. While we understand the EU’s rationale of supporting products ‘made in Europe’, we are not seeing solutions being offered to consumers, because purchasing from European websites still entails high delivery costs. We need a different approach that works in the interests of Maltese consumers, while also supporting local producers and small businesses.”

The stated rationale behind the EU customs fee and the handling fee is to promote European products by encouraging greater intra-EU sales. While the customs fee appears to have led to some reduction in online sales by Chinese operators such as Temu and Shein, with a reported 30% drop in sales to Europe, this consumer demand is not being redirected towards local or European sales, whether online or offline in Malta, because of the high transport and delivery costs to our country.

A newly published European Commission Island Strategy in fact reports how delivery of products to islands suffers from “limited accessibility, fragmented territorial structures and smaller economies of scale” leading in some cases to 300% higher costs to deliver in islands when compared to mainland Europe.

“We cannot accept a European decision to burden the Maltese consumer with a cumulative €5.54 per item in customs and handling fees without providing alternatives to our consumers who keep suffering the island handicap to the EU’s free market. This is why we need to fight back with solutions not just barriers, opening up more online sales opportunities for the Maltese by converting the proceeds of the customs fee and the handling fee into direct assistance for small local businesses to deliver online and offline sales directly to the consumer in our villages and towns,” said MEP Peter Agius.

PN representatives Delia and Agius are proposing an EU funded scheme to compensate local businesses with the cost of transport up to €3 per item category in deliveries to local buyers both for online and other forms of offline sales including delivery. The scheme is suggested to be deployed over two years starting in January 2027 with an investment of €15 million yearly, to be continued if needed after 2028. The scheme would include a call for expression of interest for local or European SMEs to express their pledges for benefitting from the scheme capped at €30,000 per business pledging to use the money to cover delivery costs covering up to €3 per item category. The said scheme would be financed with local government money for the first few months to be then covered up to 75% with an EU funded application tapping into the EU budget for SME support in digitalisation.

MEP Agius declared: “We know that such a scheme, if designed carefully, will fit into the EU criteria as being objectively non discriminatory while helping local SMEs to embrace the digital age, with the compensation mechanism serving as a trigger for downstream investments in local networks of online sales, pick up points and delivery. Such schemes are already possible in the ongoing EU funding programme which in facts already includes the e-Commerce Grant Scheme which supports local SMEs in establishing online sales, including websites, payment systems, hosting and e-commerce functionality while other EU funding SME digitalisation, including supply-chain and distribution processes.”

“The recent EU initiatives putting a burden on consumer purchases from China are to be seen as a trigger for Malta to up the game on empowering local business to tap into the niches previously conquered by the Chinese online giants. To do this we must act fast, with an EU funded scheme to offset transport costs put in place already this year. We call on Government to consider this seriously as an integral part of the upcoming budgetary exercise. This need not be a political matter, let us unite to use Europe for the best of all our citizens, consumers and businesses,” concluded Adrian Delia.

03.10.2026