Updated at 4.20pm with Birdlife reaction
Animal Rights Parliamentary Secretary Clint Camilleri on Wednesday urged hunters not to let him down when the controversial autumn trapping season reopens this weekend.
Speaking during a press conference announcing that the trapping season for song thrush and golden plover would make a return, Mr Camilleri – himself a hunter/trapper - urged hunters to follow the rules and not undo the government's efforts to keep the practice alive.
“Don’t let me down, after all these negotiations and efforts to open this season,” he said.
The Times of Malta reported on Wednesday morning how the government had held ‘hushed’ negotiation meetings with Brussels in a bid to keep the trapping season open.
Mr Camilleri confirmed that the European Commission had agreed to “parameters and principles” for an autumn trapping season to be allowed on these two species.
Trappers will reportedly be allowed to trap 700 golden plover and 5,000 song thrush throughout the season.
The trapping deal with the Commission comes just four months after the European Court of Justice declared that the practice of trapping another species – protected finches – was illegal.
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Malta has regularly applied for two derogations (legal exemptions) on trapping from the EU Birds Directive: one dealing with protected finches, which has now been ruled illegal, and the other on song thrush and golden plover.
Both exceptions have long been subject to European Union infringement proceedings and while the Commission took Malta to court over finch trapping, action on the other exception has since been left on the backburner.
Read: No more finch trapping in Malta, European court decides
Asked if he felt Malta could once again land in court once the season was opened this weekend, he said he was confident that Malta was not breaking any laws.
Earlier, Mr Camilleri said that trapping could have become a “thing of the past” had the government not been proactive and travelled to Brussels to find a solution.
The government had taken the consultative Ornis committee’s recommendations on board – particularly amending regulations to forbid trapping nets with holes smaller than 45mm, he said.
Nets traditionally used to capture other protected finches normally have 30mm-wide holes and were singled out in the court ruling.
Mr Camilleri said he felt this would address concerns of selectivity.
Other issues raised during negotiations, he said, were enforcement and transparency. He later added that these issues had been addressed.
'Another ECJ case avoided' - FKNK
The hunters' federation thanked Mr Camilleri for his work and said that thanks to the negotiations, the government had avoided another court case at the European Court of Justice which the European Commission had the intention of pursuing.
The FKNK said that it would now move on to discuss other issues with authorities, such as fines for poaching and amendments to rules about hunting wild rabbit.
Last year, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had indicated that he would consider revising poaching fines downwards.
BirdLife: EU taken for a ride
BirdLife Malta said that it had written to the European Commission for confirmation about the alleged trapping deal.
"It is a known fact that the EU Commission never agrees deals on derogations with countries but only asks for justification after there are implemented," the NGO said.
It suggested Brussels might have been "taken for a ride" by the Maltese government, if the latter had suggested it could control trapping quotas.