EU - a growing family

Last week I and a fellow MEP, Mrs Jutta Haug, a German Social Democrat, visited Malta on behalf of the environment committee of the European Parliament.

The visit, on which we will make a full report to the committee, was part of a programme of visits to countries applying to join the European Union.

It was therefore financed by the European Parliament as a normal part of our parliamentary duties and not, as Dr Alfred

Sant suggests in The Malta Independent, by any Maltese pro-EU body.

We had a packed programme that allowed us to hear the views of local politicians, businessmen and interest groups on how existing EU environmental law will affect Malta, and how Malta may fit within it.

The enlargement of the European Union will see a switch in funding from the existing EU countries to newcomers. Ask the Spanish, who have improved roads, water and sewage treatment plants, and have made other environmental improvements as a result of EU funding to date. Now it is planned to switch that type of funding to new member states.

As we saw, Malta can do with that help. Malta`s membership of the Council of Europe can bring with it no such financial aid.

It is up to individual applicant countries to negotiate arrangements with the EU on individual laws that may be contentious. Having met representatives of Malta`s bird lovers and hunters, I would only emphasise that EU law does not stand in the way of continued, sustainable, hunting in Malta.

This was my first visit to Malta. I was impressed by your beautiful islands, but depressed by the fact that those opposed to EU membership seemed content to sail Malta to an unknown destination.

The European Union is a family that is growing. As we grow, we have to take more account of the differences among us, while sticking by certain common rules.

As a British MEP I shall look forward with particular pleasure to the arrival in the European Union family of Malta GC.