Malta to receive €3.6 million from EFTA

Malta yesterday signed the first of two agreements with three member countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which will grant the island a total of €3.6 million (Lm1.5 million) to be used for projects related to the environment, conservation, health and research.

The agreement is in the form of a memorandum of understanding signed with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

It will give Malta €1.92 million (Lm800,000) for the period 2004-2009 under the European Economic Area (EEA) financial mechanism.

Later this year, Malta will sign a separate agreement with Norway under the Norwegian financial mechanism of the EEA, providing a further €1.7 million (Lm700,000).

The EEA unites the 25 EU member states and the three EEA/EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) into an internal market governed by the same basic rules on free movement in an open and competitive environment.

The agreement was signed at EFTA headquarters in Brussels between Malta's Permanent Representative to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana, and Iceland's ambassador to Belgium, Kjartan Johannsson, Liechtenstein's ambassador to Belgium and the EU, Prince Nikolaus, and the Norwegian ambassador to the EU, Bjorn Grydeland.

Following EU enlargement, an agreement was signed last year between the EU and the EEA by which the 10 new accession countries became party to the EEA agreement.

The EEA states agreed to continue their efforts to enhance cohesion and focus their efforts on the new member states. To that effect, they established the EEA financial mechanism and the Norwegian financial mechanism.

The 10 new member states are eligible for assistance from both mechanisms.

During his speech at the signing ceremony, Mr Cachia Caruana thanked the three states for the intensive discussions held over the past months with Malta and which led to a positive conclusion.

He said Malta took great care in selecting the priority areas that will benefit from the EEA funds so that projects contribute concretely to the achievement of that objective.

"As a small island with an extremely high density population, Malta faces wide-ranging environmental challenges relating to the quality of its air, water and soil, waste management and nature protection. In its structural and cohesion fund programming documents, Malta identified the key environmental issues that need to be addressed immediately."

Mr Cachia Caruana said that a call for project proposals open to all eligible entities will follow shortly. The government intended to ensure that both public and non-governmental organisations would reap the benefits of this financial mechanism.