Updated 12.50pm with BirdLife Malta's reaction
Brussels on Friday announced it is taking Malta to the European Court for violating a ban on bird trapping.
The legal action comes after trappers have been participating in a catch-and-release ‘study’, despite the Commission having warned Malta to stop the practice or face possible court action.
The scheme was first introduced last year after the European Commission effectively banned a regular season.
On Thursday Times of Malta reported that the European Commission was set to take Malta to the European Court of Justice, with sources saying an announcement was imminent.
In an announcement on its website on Friday, The European Commission said that, even though the declared objective is ‘research', several elements indicate that the scheme - in practice - allows for a large number of birds to be captured without being reported.
This, Brussels says, runs contrary to the strict conditions set by the EU's Birds Directive.
The Commission therefore sent a letter of formal notice to Malta in December 2020, followed by a reasoned opinion in June 2021.
"Although Malta repealed the incriminated legislation in early October, it did not allay the Commission's concerns: the trapping licences for the 2021 season had already been issued on the basis of the repealed 2020 framework, and new rules have been swiftly adopted with only minor changes compared to the previous legal regime," the announcement reads.
The Commission therefore considers the reply by the Maltese authorities to both the letter of formal notice and the reasoned opinion as "unsatisfactory".
The contentious practice of trapping protected finches using cages and nets was effectively banned by the European Court of Justice in 2018.
It declared that, by allowing the live capture of seven species of protected wild finches, Malta was failing to fulfil its conservation obligations.
Last year, the government went ahead and opened the season anyway, claiming it was for a scientific study to ring birds and re-release them.
In March, Times of Malta reported that the government had written to the European Commission to inform it that it planned to continue allowing trapping for research purposes this year too.
BirdLife Malta: close the trapping season
Reacting to the news, BirdLife Malta said the government had no other option than to immediately close the trapping season.
"The latest developments in response to Prime Minister Robert Abela’s decision to ignore previous warnings were inevitable. It was a question of when, not if.
"BirdLife Malta had warned the government to end this charade, but instead of doing what was obvious, when the infringement process was escalated, the Prime Minister gave in to the trapping lobby and to Minister Clint Camilleri’s demands and continued to challenge the Commission," it said in a statement on Friday.
"Now that the European Commission has announced it will be once again taking Malta to the European Court of Justice over the trapping derogation, the government has only itself to blame," the statement ends.