Editorial: Tradition without accountability

A fireworks factory explodes near a residential area for the second time in seven years; the minimum one expects from elected representatives is a serious engagement with the safety question.

And yet, what two of Malta’s main MEPs have offered instead is a defence of the status quo… dressed in the mealy-mouthed language of cultural sovereignty.

Unfortunately, it has become typical of Maltese MEPs to turn the national agenda into one that is entirely provincial in outlook, especially when it comes to decouple Malta from the rest of Europe to safeguard so-called ‘traditions’ that are unsafe or deleterious to the environment, or even to ring-fence economic and industrial sectors from EU regulation.

Both Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba and Nationalist MEP Peter Agius, rivals who usually trade barbs with each other on social media, set much store by their defence of national interests.

In this instance, Agius Saliba is insisting with his colleagues in the European Parliament that pyrotechnics are “integral” to Malta’s cultural heritage and that their production is regulated by Maltese law – he claims no EU action is needed for a matter that does not fall under the EU’s competence.

Agius, writing to Green MEP and vice president Nicolae Ștefǎnutǎ, acknowledged the concern, while invoking UNESCO heritage status and offering further discussion grounded in the “respect of our respective national competences”.

Both letters, in their different registers, are trying to shut down a conversation about safety by invoking a cultural argument as a deflection. Here, European MEPs are right in questioning whether the current safety framework for fireworks factories in Malta is adequate – and on this, neither letter by Malta’s MEPs offers anything of substance.

Instead, both MEPs will conveniently conjure Brussels as some uninvited force clamping down on Maltese cultural traditions, hoping to harden the hearts of festa enthusiasts.

The most troubling assertion here is that “accidents of this sort are a rarity”, when a safety commission in 2011 analysed 99 accidents between 1980 and 2010, recording 2.3 incidents per year across that period. It predicted, with precision, that Malta would experience at least one large-scale fatal accident in 2012 or 2013 unless regulations were tightened – in 2012, four men died at the Qalb ta’ Gesù factory, 500 metres from the same site that had triggered the inquiry.

The Ta’ Lourdes factory that exploded on June 1 had already exploded in 2018.

At least eight people were on the way to work at the same fireworks factory when it blew up, with two of them just five minutes away. They were heading to the factory from Gozo to finish work on fireworks for their festa; a few others from other localities in Malta were planning to join them a little while later to work on their own fireworks for festas later in summer.

These episodes and data do not support the word “rarity”, but confirm the limits of a regulatory framework that has been reviewed and warned repeatedly. Arguably, it has been reformed insufficiently.

Malta desperately needs to have a public consultation on noise pollution and the safety of fireworks factories. Ignoring the debate for fear of upsetting the fireworks lobby is irresponsible. 

Inside the European Parliament, both Maltese political parties appear to have made this choice already, rushing to protect the fireworks lobby ahead of the safety, lives and homes of their constituents.

Safety and tradition are not in conflict.

But representing Malta in the European Parliament also means representing the farmers who were knocked off their feet in Magħtab, and the families whose windows were shattered, and the thousands who fear a repeat.

Our MEPs are free to defend Malta’s cultural traditions, but they should not be allowed to misrepresent the safety record, and dismiss legitimate regulatory questions as external interference.