The upcoming European elections will decide on Malta's five Members of the European Parliament. Of course, on a good number of issues the five Maltese MEPs will be working and co-ordinating together to achieve the best for our country. However, there are and there will be issues on which the prevailing philosophy of the Nationalist Party, Malta Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika differ quite substantially and therefore the voters have to decide whom to choose to represent their interests in the European Parliament.
So what about me and Alternattiva Demokratika? Why should the voters prefer Arnold Cassola to other candidates? Well, one good reason is that we Greens have an excellent track record when it comes to voting on environmental issues in the European Parliament, something which not everybody has.
The statistics are clear: Friends of the Earth, Europe have compiled statistics on the voting record on environmental issues in the European Parliament by the different politial groupings - see www.foeeurope.org/euvotewatch/.
Facts speak stronger than words. During the past five years, the Green Group, where I shall be sitting if elected, scored a 99 per cent score with regard to the percentage of environment-friendly votes cast in the European Parliament - definitely the best score on the protection of the environment. And we all know that, even more so in Malta, protecting the environment actually means safeguarding the economy, since a substantial part of our national income derives from activities linked to the environment, such as tourism; the hotel and catering industry; the precious niche activities such as diving or cultural holidays, etc.
One must admit that the Party of European Socialists (PES) have quite a good record too on environmental voting in the EP, since the PES, where the MLP will be sitting, has a 91 per cent score on environment-friendly votes. The big shock, which sends shivers down the spine, is the track record of the European People's Party (PPE), where the PN MEPs will be sitting.
I remember a few weeks ago, when Lawrence Gonzi was about to be elected PN leader, he had declared that the environment was the first priority for him. I breathed a sigh of relief: was this finally going to mean a shift in the PN's agenda in favour of enhancing Malta's environment and economy? I was to be proved wrong immediately.
In fact, at that time I was busily lobbying the different political groups in the European Parliament in Brussels to vote for an amendment asking the Maltese government to abandon its plans of folly, which envisaged the building of a landfill for domestic, therefore hazardous waste, a few hundred metres from our unique cultural heritage in Mnajdra, which is also a source of revenue for our country.
I managed to persuade the whole spectrum of the different political orientations: the European Liberals, the European Left, the European Socialists; the European Right; the Eurosceptics. Irrespective of their very different ideologies, they all agreed that the Maltese government's plans for the Mnajdra folly were damaging for Maltese, European and international heritage.
What UNESCO had decreed as a World Heritage site should not be reduced to a dumping site for Scammels carrying domestic waste at the rate of one every minute or so! And therefore, all these different European political parties joined us Greens in voting in favour of the amendment which Alternattiva Demokratika and I had presented. Together, we successfully obtained a majority of votes in the Environment Committee asking for the world-famous Mnajdra neolithic temples to be spared this dismal fate.
No sooner had this vote got through that the Nationalist Party leadership started its intensive counter-campaign to reverse this decision. The Nationalist Party, whose deputy leader (at the time) Lawrence Gonzi had solemnly declared in Malta that his priority was safeguarding the environment, spearheaded a full-blooded attack to remove any reference to the Mnajdra issue.
The lack of sensitivity shown by the PN and its counterparts of the European People's Party (PPE) to the inhabitants of Qrendi, Siggiewi and Malta in general was something absolutely not understandable!
And, to reach its objective, the Maltese government even resorted to misleading the EU Commissioner on the Environment. In fact, in a response to a parliamentary question tabled by the European Greens on AD's and my initiative, Ms Wallstrom informed the parliament that the Maltese government had assured her that the Mnajdra landfill was only for non-hazardous domestic waste! A lie as big as a supertanker, since for domestic waste to be non-hazardous it has to be sorted and separated at source at home - something which does not happen in Malta!
But the Nationalist government achieved its objective. At the end of the day, the (misleading!) lobbying of the PN and its allies of the PPE in the European Parliament achieved the desired (for them) result: in the plenary session the original vote was reversed by a meagre 16 votes.
As a result of this vote, despite a one-year respite period, the Mnajdra landfill option is still on the books!
This is just one small example of the abominable track record of the PN's allies in the European Parliament as regards pro-environment voting. Does the reader know what score during the past five years the friends of the PN have recorded? Ninety-nine per cent was the quota of the Euro-pean Greens; 91 per cent of the European Socialists. Hold your breath: regarding pro-environmental voting, the European People's Party has a voting record of... 26.7 per cent, even worse than the European Rightist Group (UEN) which, with its 30 per cent shows more concern about the environment than the PPE!
These objective statistics should provide a clear pointer to Maltese and Gozitan voters who have at heart the safeguarding of the Maltese environment and economy. It is good for one and all to ponder on all this.
www.arnoldcassola.com