EU ‘assessing’ Malta’s response to bird trapping ruling

The European Commission is “assessing” the government’s response to a judgment that found it in breach of EU bird trapping rules, with European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall “confident” a solution will be found.

Roswall was speaking to Times of Malta during a two-day visit to Malta last week.

In Malta, Roswall toured a barn owl conservation project run by the hunters’ federation, prompting criticism from environmentalists, with BirdLife Malta CEO Mark Sultana saying she had “fallen into a greenwashing trap”.

This was not the first time Roswall’s name has been drawn into Malta’s contentious issue of hunting and bird trapping debate. Shortly after a European court ruled last September against Malta allowing finch trapping for “research purposes”, Roswall met with hunting minister Clint Camilleri at a time when the government was pledging to study “the way forward”. Just days later, Malta reopened the trapping season, once again describing it as a “research period”.

In an interview at the European Commission offices in Valletta, Roswall refused to say whether the government was undermining the court’s ruling. “I’m here to find solutions. I think that is the only way forward,” she told Times of Malta.

Roswall said the two sides had continued discussing the issue following a meeting in November. “I had the meeting, we wrote a letter and they responded,” she said. “Now we are assessing the response, which we received recently.”

Roswall said “it is important that this is solved”, adding she is confident that a solution will be found as talks progress. “I believe in dialogue and finding the way forward,” she said.

Incinerators

Aside from its bird trapping practices, Malta has also faced EU court action for failing to sufficiently treat its sewage before discharging it into the sea. At the time of the ruling in late 2024, the government said it had stepped up sewage treatment measures ever since the EU’s assessment some years earlier.

Roswall told Times of Malta she would be visiting one of the sewage treatment plants that came under the court’s spotlight, Mellieħa’s Iċ-Ċumnija plant, hoping to see progress.

“I don’t want to have any ongoing infringement with any member state,” she said. “I want to see progress, that’s my main interest”.

Roswall, who is leading the EU’s push for new laws on the circular economy, was cautious when asked about Malta’s plans to build a series of incinerators, including a waste-to-energy plant in Magħtab.

The plans have drawn protests from some residents and organisations, with many arguing that the introduction of incinerators in Malta runs counter to the Europe-wide push to close them down.

However, the issue is not clear cut, Roswall said. “In politics it’s never ‘this is good and this is bad’,” she warned. “You always have to put things into balance and see what the pros and cons are”.

Ultimately, Roswall argued, “waste is a resource”, particularly because Malta “has a challenge with landfilling”.

I don’t want to have any ongoing infringement with any member state. I want to see progress, that’s my main interest- European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall

With a looming energy supply crisis, Europe needs to find ways to wean itself off fossil fuels, Roswall said. “This is where waste-to-energy can come in and play a role,” she said. This needs to be accompanied by other measures to minimise waste and, wherever possible, repurpose it. “This is what we are trying to address in the circular economy act, that we see how we can reuse the right waste.”

So, does she think there is a role for a waste-to-energy incinerator in Malta’s waste management strategy, alongside a greater push for circularity?

“Absolutely there is, we need all of them,” she replied.

Roswall said she remained worried about Europe’s slow transition towards renewable energy, an issue that Malta has also struggled to keep pace with. “It concerns me for the whole of the EU, not just Malta,” she remarked.

The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are only the latest signs that “we are too dependent on fossil fuels”.

“We learned the hard way, for the second time in five years, that dependencies are not good. I am worried that the transition has to move faster,” Roswall said. “It’s important for climate change but also for our security and economy.”