Last Thursday's vote in Strasbourg on the monitoring report concerning the ten acceding countries to the EU is a clear example of why it is essential for Malta to have a Green MEP in the European Parliament. Of course, mine is not an unbiased opinion since, being the AD-Green Party candidate to the European Parliament, I have a declared personal interest in the forthcoming elections.

However, I am sure that a closer look at what happened during the past months, in the run up to the vote, will convince many Sunday Times readers that without an Alternattiva Demokratika candidate in the Green Group in the European Parliament certain important issues concerning Malta will never be brought up in the European Parliament.

What happened last Wednesday? First of all, a Green and Alternattiva amendment on the length of examination of asylum requests in Malta was accepted by the majority of the European Parliament.

The amendment "calls on Maltese authorities to speed up the examination of the asylum requests so as to be in full compliance with the acquis; (and) calls also on the Commission to further support Malta in its efforts to reinforce its administrative capacity, including the human resources dealing with the asylum procedure until accession and later in the framework of the transition fund".

Our amendment is a clear example of the strong sense of responsibility which characterises us Greens. In fact, our amendment calls for the speeding up of the whole procedures of examination of asylum requests.

Such an issue has become one of the biggest human rights worries relating to our country and has raised the eyebrows of many, including Amnesty International and the Council of Europe. But our amendment did not stop there.

We also asked the European Commission to support Malta in all ways in strengthening the administrative structures in this area.

In second place, we Greens - who had initiated the whole process in favour of six seats in the EP for our country way back in 2001 - contributed our vote to defeating the Liberal Group request to keep our country riveted onto the present five seats in the EP.

Thirdly, we gave our strong contribution to getting through a key vote on hunting in spring in Malta. In fact, the European Parliament voted that it "assumes that after accession, and notwithstanding certain transitional arrangements, the provisions of the European Wild Birds Directive in particular will be fully transposed and implemented in keeping with European species conservation".

In practice, this vote means that we have set into motion the beginning of the end of hunting in Spring.

Without us Greens, who even persuaded many level-headed European Christian Democrat and Socialist MEPs on the validity of our arguments, such a vote would have had great difficulty in getting through. In fact, Dr George Vella, in the name of the MLP, in 1996 signed an agreement with the hunting lobby in Malta to continue defending Maltese Hunters' malpractices (otherwise known as "delizji")!

Not to be outdone, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, representing the Nationalist Party, did exactly the same in the run-up to the 1998 elections. In Malta it has been till now an open competition between PN and MLP on who can best defend the egoistic interests of the hunters.

On the other hand, we at Alternattiva Demokratika are the only political party in Malta that - from the outset - have openly declared that we will work to defend the wider interests of all Maltese against the egoistic interests of hunters.

Last Thursday's vote in the European Parliament not only vindicates our claim but also proves that European Civil Society and the European political class are on the side of the Maltese Greens and of the majority of the Maltese and Gozitan population.

However, last Thursday in the European Parliament, Malta and the Maltese suffered a big blow too. In fact, the European Popular Party, strongly lobbied by the PN, blocked by a small majority of 15 votes (214 against 199) the Alternattiva Demokratika and European Greens amendment which called "for the Maltese government to fully align its waste management policy with EU requirements, and to reconsider the establishment of a temporary landfill at a close proximity to a Unesco heritage site". We were clearly referring to the Mnajdra landfills controversy here.

The PN's behaviour on this issue at the European level clearly demonstrates that Dr Gonzi's recent words on the environment and waste management as a priority for his party are simply empty rhetoric.

Basically, these were the first words uttered by Dr Gonzi as soon as he was elected some days ago. The ink is not yet dry on the paper and, yet, despite the new PN leader's declaration that the environment and waste management are on top of the Government priority list, the Maltese government has done its utmost in Brussels to ensure that such an amendment, which had already been voted on favourably in the Environment Committee, would not be accepted by the Foreign Affairs Committee before and now last Thursday in the plenary session.

In spite of all the manoeuvring in Brussels of the PN, 199 Members of the European Parliament have understood Alternattiva Demokratika and the Greens' arguments and have voted in favour of safeguarding Maltese and international common heritage comprising history, environment, culture and identity.

On the other hand, the PN has the historic responsibility of having lobbied 214 MEPs to ignore the reference, thus basically pretending not to know that a UNESCO world heritage site is going to be turned into a landfill for domestic waste, which is made up of organic and other hazardous stuff, such as used batteries, cans of spray, old medicines, etc.

This is absolutely shameful. The consequences of siting these landfills in Mnajdra will pose a serious environmental threat not only to the people of Siggiewi and Qrendi, not only to all the Maltese living in our archipelago today, but also to all Maltese and Gozitans who are yet to be born.

With the Thursday vote, the Maltese government has been asked to transpose fully the bird directive, which effectively means the end of spring hunting in Malta. This will make it easier for the setting up of the Hagar Qim heritage park, as envisaged already 12 years ago in our Structure Plan.

It is now only the landfill - so much wanted by the Maltese government - that risks marring the Hagar Qim area from becoming a veritable gem of heritage park. The PN in government and its freshly elected leader have a clear choice ahead of them: either feel the pulse of a substantial part of the population and bow their heads to the will of the majority... or ignore the people and continue pigheadedly on the road to folly.

It is now really all in the hands of the new PN leader, whether he chooses to listen to the voice of democracy or whether he chooses to impose his party's stubborn will... go down in history as the prime minister who ruined the quality of life of Maltese future generations.

arnold.cassola@alternattiva.org.mt