The real meaning of accession

As Mediterraneans we tend to do very little or nothing...then panic. As the accession date approaches there appears to be more interest in the festivities than meeting the obligations that being European will bring with it.

Exactly a year ago pre-referendum headlines gushed: "Plans to introduce scheme for returned plastic bottles" (Environment Minister George Pullicino). Twelve months later the plans do not appear to have got past the drawing board.

Also in February of last year, Dr Francis Zammit Dimech, as Resources Minister, in a reference to the rubbish dumps, promised: "The scientific profiling of the dumps would soon be completed." It would be very interesting to hear the results of this.

Nearly a year after the question was first asked do we still not know who is responsible for regulating and monitoring infectious hospital waste.

Which of MEPA's local plans still await approval in Parliament? Why the delay? It is being said that this is being used as a loophole for developments not approved in the plan.

There was also talk of an electric bus to be used on the Sliema circular bus route, which was to be sponsored by MEPA. Has this also fallen through?

Last November the EU Commission's regular report on Malta's progress towards accession said that, within the environment chapter, it was particularly important for the Maltese Government to develop a plan for financing directive-specific investments based on estimations for costs of alignment. The Commission flagged this as a short-term priority. Has anything been done?

Two years have gone by since Friends of the Earth called for stringent and transparent emissions testing for all motor vehicles. Malta Today recently reported: "Although emissions tests have been introduced nobody seems to know about them, what the parameters are and so on."

Could have done better

Europe's outgoing Italian Presidency was given three out of nine by European environmental organisations. The Italian leadership did badly over the past six months and failed most of the nine green tests put to it by the European Environmental Bureau.

The secretary general of the EEB, John Hontelez, is worried that Italy has set a trend of prioritising competitiveness in the EU while marginalising the interests of the environment, health and future generations.

The EEB presented its challenge to the Italians in July 2003, something it does for every incoming European Presidency. The nine green tests cover the most important environmental challenges today. Here's how Italy scored:

Climate Change - Fail. Italy undermined the credibility of the EU on its commitment to Kyoto during its Presidency, thereby reducing the pressure on Russia.

GMOs - Pass. The moratorium on GMOs was retained. Europe's NGOs breathed a sigh of relief.

Chemicals - Fail. The Competitiveness Council was given the European Commission's REACH proposal, taking it out of the hands of the Environment Council, where it belongs. This gave undeserved credibility to the cynical campaign of the European chemical industry against this proposal.

Public Procurement - Pass. Public health and the environment was promoted in new regulations on public purchasing, and the Ecolabel is now part of the selection criteria.

Air Pollution - Fail. With weak leadership, the legislation is still stuck in the Council.

Seveso II - Pass. There has been real progress on mining, and monitoring risk data.

Ecofin - Fail. The Ecofin did nothing to reduce the negative environmental impacts of subsidies in the EU even though the March Council requested this.

The Constitution - Fail. The Italian Presidency sacrificed real achievements for its own prestige and an unnecessarily short timetable.

Environmental Governance - No result. No action was possible due to the late delivery of proposals by the EU Commission.

The EEB will now be turning its gaze on the Irish Presidency in the hopes that Ireland will do better for Europe.

Noises off

Last May the European Parliament decided to tackle noise pollution. Green MEP Alexander de Roo, vice-chair of the European Parliament's Environment Committee, noted that one-third of EU citizens complain that they are suffering from noise pollution.

Following pressure the European Parliament rejected a proposal to limit the Noise Directive solely to noise measurement and insisted on a more ambitious EU noise policy. The Greens asked the Commission to come up with proposals for further legislation to set standards for different sources of noise.

The decision was hailed by the Greens as "a great step to protect millions of Europeans from the harmful effects of noise disturbances."

The main aim of the Noise Directive is to define a common approach to combat the harmful effects of exposure to environmental noise.

It proposes the establishment of common noise indicators, the drawing up by member states of strategic noise maps, and the implementation of national plans to prevent or reduce environmental noise. The Directive will provide a means of assessing and evaluating environmental noise and serve as a basis for developing future policies on noise.

The previous year, in a landmark decision, the EU court had already declared that nocturnal airport noise is an infringement on human rights.

MEP de Roo, rapporteur for the noise report, said that up until the court ruling, governments had resisted establishing an EU-wide system of noise control, leaving many of their own citizens exposed to harmful noise emissions.

What legislative progress has Malta made regarding noise from vehicles and machinery?

Elementary

Malta features on the enlargement page in the latest issue of Environment for Europeans, a magazine put out free in five languages by DG Environment. Anyone interested may receive the magazine four times a year by contacting the Communications and Civil Society Unit on envinfo@cec.eu.int

The quarterly magazine notes that "the country faces a number of problems, in particular regarding water standards, while it is lagging behind in the treatment and recycling of waste."

The publication also notes that while the Maltese Islands have a rich and interesting biodiversity there is concern that more needs to be done in terms of nature protection and conservation. (Whatever happened to Malta's Natura 2000 sites?)

"Hunting of wild birds has been traditionally popular," continues the article, "but the government has been warned to enforce properly the EU rules restricting such activities.

Men who burgle nature reserves in the dead of night are hunters all right... above all they are hunting for trouble. At least one springtime bloodbath per year is on the verge of becoming a tradition to show everyone who rules the season.

In 2004 we started off with a high profile gunning of the same wild birds others have worked so hard to protect. This is a clear case of anarchists showing off and, graver still, showing that for the time being they continue to get away with it.

The Federation for Hunters and Konservazzjonisti recoiled ostensibly at the report of the spoonbills massacre, disowning the culprits and threatening to sue BirdLife for ever imagining that these nasty individuals could possibly be hunters, albeit of the lowest kind.

Prove it, said the hunting federation's secretary after bloodstained spoonbill feathers were found at the bird sanctuary. He had the nerve to express doubt over whether the protected birds were actually killed.

So what is his version of that stain of a night? Were the spoonbills then hauled away shrieking, but still alive, to be sold into avian slavery? Fish feathers!

If the act itself has not shamed the nation enough, this type of discourse from the Hunters' Federation addressed to the EU Commission simply drives us into the ground. What kind of a worm persists so avariciously in its foul ways? Are the hunters in denial?

The FKNK took potshots at a list of local and global calamities in a pitiful attempt to place a decoy in the path of EU rage at the slaughter of Europe's (as well as Africa's) migrating birds. In a letter to Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström that added further to our discredit, the Hunters' Federation threatened the media.

On the other hand we have the ministry, which condemns and augurs, while still believing it can get away with doing eff all. Then, expertly diverting attention away from the real issue, the ministry goes into a tizzy over whether it was really BirdLife's fault that the spoonbills were ripped from Malta's and Europe's natural heritage bank.

The call made by Din l-Art Helwa last year now stands to be repeated more strongly than ever: Bring in the army. Hunting has had its bloody day.

And please book the guy with the bumper sticker that reads, " If you fly you die" for inciting terrorism on protected species.

The successful operation to remove trappers from the Pembroke garigue appears to be in danger of suffering a relapse. Down South another trapper tends a bean patch in happy oblivion on the Misqa Cisterns, the rain catchment plateau for the Hagar Qim/Mnajdra complex.

A is for Architect

MEPA's Division A is the Development Control Commission (DCC) delegated to take decisions on major projects, villas and other developments falling outside the development zone.

Apart from one member with a diploma in husbandry, nutrition and disease of farm animals (rather wasted on hotels and villas) it is made up of five architects and one law student.

In all three DCC divisions there is not a single person with a background on nature protection. The only architect with grounding in environmental planning and management is manacled to the division dealing with projects inside the development boundary and in industrial zones.