Lemmings, wolves and other referenda

Impatient MLP: "We cannot wait for the bureaucracy of Brussels to give us the money" - Joe Mizzi.

Unswerving PN: "The Lm81 million net gain is a clear fact. Labour mathematics can only mean deficits for corporations and taxes on electricity and sewers" - George Pullicino.

Watchful AD: "We have a wonderful set of laws and remedial systems but if the Green Party is not present to take an active part then enforcement is not going to work" - Harry Vassallo.

Children with a high rate of asthma were being given polluted water to drink. Water that contained nitrates pre-disposing them to respiratory diseases. The country? Malta, where they ate fish from sewage-rich waters and thought heavy metal was a rock band.

The three political parties were represented at a seminar organised by Nature Trust on how the Maltese environment would be affected by joining the European Union.

"The environmental chapter is the one on which there should be absolutely no debate", said Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Harry Vassallo.

Yet while a Nationalist government finds it difficult to explain why it has not previously been able to bring in the changes now required by EU membership, the Malta Labour Party criticises the very thing which will give the country's environment and its people the respect they deserve.

"It is not simply a question of safeguarding the quality of life but bringing in the economic, social and cultural changes to be able to achieve this.

"The change will not happen from the top down, It will happen because environment organisations and the general public will enjoy previously unheard of empowerment in decision-making and participation in the planning process", Dr Vassallo said.

He added that the changes EU membership would bring about were the same changes AD had been trying to bring in for a long time. "If Malta does not recognise EU accession as our only short cut to environmental improvement we will be looking at a process that will take decades. Once the country is inside the EU, we will have decent air to breath, stop swimming in our own sewage and safeguard what is left of the countryside in our lifetime", Dr Vassallo said.

Environmental issues cannot be discussed in a vacuum. During his intervention shadow minister Joe Mizzi referred to the compact MLP document on the environment (described by Mr Pullicino as "an exercise book") boasting that his party was the only one to have produced such a document. In fact the whole document is a fraction of the size of the EU-funded strategy for waste management.

Mr Mizzi went to great lengths to attack the timeframe of the closing of Maghtab and Qortin dumps citing different government and MIC versions that varied by a few months.

Labour's own ambitious deadline for the closing of Maghtab is accompanied by a void when one asks about the details of how it is to be done.

Labour's criticism over mixing of hazardous and non-hazardous waste at the proposed engineered landfill proved to be invalid since it is clear the wastes are to be segregated in line with the landfill directive.

While an Environment Impact Assessment is currently being done for a better landfill in line with EU guidelines for public participation it appears the MLP would play leapfrog if elected and short-circuit the normal channels to achieve its singular political aims.

One frightening indication of what the vacuum offered by Labour's Partnership might set loose was given at the recent Building Industry Consultative Committee meeting which turned into an MLP platform for pre-electoral assurances that a Labour government would not think twice about circumventing the Planning Authority.

Mr Pullicino remarked that in effect this would hurtle the country back to the Seventies when ministers, their secretaries and possibly even their chauffeurs were the ones to dictate the building policy of the land.

There would be no more planning board such as the one Mr Mizzi now sits on, he said. After the last election one of the first things the Labour government did on returning to power was to curtail the public's right to information on development applications.

"We do not have to wait for membership to set up Marine Conservation Areas. One or two are expected to be in place by the end of the year", added the parliamentary secretary.

EU funding also favours diving tourism with a special reference to Gozo offering further possibilities in this realm.

The desired increases in police personnel and logistics tackling illegal hunting had not been met, but the number of people appearing in court over the last three years on hunting charges had increased threefold.

In 1992 we saw the beginning of the end of the culture that illegal buildings remained untouched when the PA, now MEPA, began to tear down some offending structures.

Nature Trust secretary Annalise Falzon hoped that democracy the result of the Qala referendum of the people against the coastal development project in Gozo would be given equal recognition on a par with the EU referendum.

Partnership with Africa

"It is a mistake to think we have to be members to look after the environment," insisted Mr Mizzi, singling out the switch from leaded petrol to lead replacement petrol which some African countries had already introduced.

"To solve our environmental problems it has to be us, not someone else", continued Mr Mizzi. A Labour government would reverse any law opening the market to plastic bottles while making it possible to take the government to court for environmental misdemeanours. These and similar claims failed to patch over the huge gaps and lack of coherence in the MLP's environmental policy.

"If it was so easy for Sudan, why didn't the MLP bring in lead replacement petrol itself?" Mr Pullicino retorted. To a reference by Mr Mizzi of funding possibilities outside the EU he said that the money for the Sant'Antnin recycling plant had come from an Italian protocol.

The most recent protocol signed was tied to EU membership. "We will lose this if the referendum produces a negative result," Mr Pullicino said, adding that anyone can go to the World Bank for a loan.

This was what Labour had in mind. Partnership was no more than a number of concessions given to Arab and other countries which have no chance of joining the EU.

Help is already coming from Europe even before we enter the union. A waste water treatment plant will be built in Gozo using pre-accession funds above and beyond the millions gained for structural funding.

"We are doing this to protect our health - not to please Brussels. We want to bring in standards that will always be there, not change depending on the government of the day."

In order to enforce we must first know what is happening to the environment. One and a half million Malta liri have been allocated to the environment, much of it for monitoring.

Responding to a question on the ORNIS committee, which is to take over from the defunct Environmental Monitoring Board, Mr Pullicino said he hoped that the many different groups in the field of environment and animal rights would amalgamate and become stronger.

Dr Vassallo was unruffled by Mr Mizzi's name-calling, comparing AD to a hyena. "As long as we have a function in the ecosystem of the planet, there is plenty to sink our teeth into - weak ideas, hypocrisies and contradictions," he mused.

In return he likened the MLP to an unusual animal in nature which is known for committing suicide. "The MLP is running as fast as it can to the sea to drown like a lemming."

To Mr Pullicino's statement that environmental improvement depends on a strong economy, Dr Vassallo added that a poor environment would in turn weaken the economy. The discussion, he said, should not be on whether or not to join, but on how to meet the high standards the EU requires of us.

Double-edged awareness

A round-up of the negotiations in the environmental sector was presented by Simon Busuttil from MIC. The phenomenal increase in awareness that had come about as a result of the studies required during the accession process was a double-edged sword for politicians he said. The first screening in November 1999 showed how backward Malta's environment was compared to Europe.

As people became aware of their right to know and the potential to improve they were also angered by the studies which showed poor quality and health threats in the environment. "We have learnt a lot about the technical aspects and the structures needed to solve our problems", Dr Busuttil reasoned.

Funds for a Lm3 million sewage treatment plant in Gozo will be made available before membership. On joining Malta will have access to further financial aid to build more treatment plants for the high standard of bathing water that Europeans demand.

This is especially important since we use seawater for half our drinking water supply. The overall financial benefit of improvements in safety of drinking and bathing is projected to be as high as Lm20 million per year in health savings and other costs.

Improving or replacing existing boilers at Delimara and other air quality measures will see a reduction in several more millions in health costs.

Government must now decide on how to limit the impact of more plastic bottles on the market by extending the deposit-return scheme on glass bottles to every type of bottle and possibly combine this with an eco-tax on plastic with no discrimination of the origin of the product or its packaging.

"This is the commitment government has made in your name in the context of membership," concluded Dr Busuttil. Enforcement mechanisms are in place to see that countries keep their word, giving the authorities a reasonable chance to take correct action or face eventual penalties if refusal to do so persists.

Malta is already in Europe

World Wildlife Fund desk officer Fulvio Cerfolli described the Natura 2000 and LIFE project networks underway in Italy. Urgent actions to safeguard habitats and species of European interest can be co-financed with EU money, he said. It was necessary to guarantee the serious management of local conservation activities.

Mr Cerfolli had worked on projects to conserve the bear, wolf and lynx in the Italian Alps and obtained funds for the rent and purchase of steppe land for preservation in Sardinia.

The Black Pine and other rare trees in the Southern Appenine forest had been protected. Nature Trust president Vince Attard added that Malta was in a way already part of Europe as the islands had been accepted after scientific consideration, as part of the same eco-region as Italy.

The options are clear. Join Europe and expect to see improvements in place within the next five to ten years, or stay out with the population facing inevitable taxes and delays of 20 years or more to bring about any change.

The decision is between the black and white of EU membership and a ship which sinks lower and faster than the Titanic - the MLP's empty vessel of Partnership.