A total of €450,000 will be spent on bolstering the Environment and Resources Authority to help it better carry out reforms, the government announced on Tuesday. 

Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia told Times of Malta the project would help the authority with getting advice through a European network of experts as well as the European Commission. 

“We want to strengthen the areas related to permitting and compliance. Our aim, following the MEPA de-merger and the formation of ERA three years ago, is to now strengthen the authority,” Mr Farrugia said. 

The authority knows where it is headed and the experts will be helping it to get to that point, he said when asked about the apparent culture of impunity over the erection of illegal structures. 

Pressed to say whether there will be any immediate changes in order to address this issue of impunity, Mr Farrugia said that there was already a “good platform” and laws that can be implemented. 

“As Environment Minister I will be making sure that the laws that have long been in place are implemented,” Mr Farrugia said. 

In recent months, the issue of illegal structures once again made headlines after the Suq tal-Belt was slapped with an enforcement notice on its permanently installed canopies.

The open piazza outside the Old Market was initially promised as an open exhibition space, however tables and chair to serve the catering establishments operating from the market were in place outside the building without a permit since its opening in January 2018.

The market’s operators, Arkadia Marketing limited appealed the enforcement and a tribunal sitting by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal was scheduled for November 28 of last year.

The sitting was cancelled and a replacement date for the hearing has yet to be announced more than a month later.