The frontrunners

The first part of the job has been accomplished. Malta, through its citizens, has chosen whom it thinks would suit her most to speak up for her and for a bigger and expanding Europe for the next five years in the European Parliament. Now comes the harder second part: How a handful of Maltese MEPs are to cover together, for each other and for their country, the various committees that finalise the drafts for the European and, inevitably, the Maltese laws of tomorrow. God willing, the elected Maltese MEPs will do their best, working together to deliver for Europe and for their country.

And their best may well be a step, or should I say steps, further than the current attitude around us. Today I will focus on the dilemmas of a fledgling Maltese MEP in the European Parliament when faced with a framework or more direct European directives on the environment.

That the citizens of Malta and Gozo expect an amelioration of the environmental situation as a result of EU accession is no secret as it featured prominently in various surveys before and after the referendum. How that amelioration is going to be attained is largely down to the national government, scrutinised by the unforgiving eyes of our reliable watchdogs (the environmental NGOs) in its dealings with the various stakeholders. But the change in mentality and attitude that we need to go through is common to all - the national government, local authorities, NGOs, citizens and Maltese MEPs.

That, I can say, is a challenge I am looking forward to.

The most commonly paraphrased environmental statement is that "the polluter pays". No doubt, it is a sine qua non of contemporary European environmental legislation and monitoring but it does not really exist in practice in contemporary Maltese environmental legislation and monitoring. How much in practice have various developers had to pay to the environmental fund of Mepa for their misbehaviours in relation to the size of the projects involved? How much did various lawbreakers and vandals have to pay for their outright disrespect to the natural environment, nature reserves, birds, trees and the rest?

How much is the national government paying back to its citizens for its laissez faire attitude in minimising drastically air and water pollution? How much are environmentally irresponsible citizens paying to their fellows for their misuse of limited natural resources and for an excessive consumption pattern?

It will be a challenge for us all to get in line with the level attained by European counterparts and for our MEPs to transpose this newly-acquired attitude into the local mentality.

All this sense of newly-attained responsibility brings to mind another fundamental paraphrase of environmentalism: The right to correct and up-to-date information on the state of the environment. It is ironically a relief to at last see up-to-date data on levels of environmental pollutants in Malta and Gozo on the website of the European Environment Agency.

The data portrayed is no surprise - various university academics and NGO experts and other specialists in various fields had told us repeatedly what we are enduring. High lead levels in our blood, high water nitrate levels, high indoor benzene levels, high outdoor particulate matter levels, high marine heavy metal levels and so on and so forth. There are credible evidence-based reasons to explain them.

And where are the official statements now? Where are the "official" explanations that the high water nitrate level is not due to excessive use of fertilisers in agriculture, that the high particulate matter levels are not due to quantitative and qualitative use of fuel for transport purposes, and so on and so forth?

It will be a challenge for us all to get in line with accepting swiftly scientific information and pass it on immediately to citizens and to transpose this newly-acquired line of thought into the local scenario.

Another pillar of contemporary environmentalism is the belief in participatory democracy, the belief that all stakeholders, including the public, is to be involved in all steps of planning, decision-making and management, in line with sustainable development principles. This approach gives an ever increasing role to civil society and its representatives.

Unfortunately, various environmentally sound projects on our islands have underachieved due to fragmented and disjointed group operations and/or the inability of dominant groups to relinquish their quest for absolute control and/or top-down paternalistic approaches and/or outright interference from know-it-all interventionists.

On the other hand, it is a relief to see a few NGOs and local councils stubbornly sticking to these noble principles in their approaches and to deliver tangible results and to, likewise, see new civil society groups being created and organising themselves in response to environmental issues in their neighbourhoods. It will be a challenge for us all to get tuned to bottom-up approaches and fuller democracy and transpose it to the attitude in the local scenario.

My last comment for today is on an environmental principle which is relatively new in European legislation and which will hence be a challenge to take up during its further evolution, elaboration and implementation. Last year, during the drafting of a framework directive on wastes coming from electrical appliances it was interesting from a political, legal and environmental perspective to follow the argumentation in favour of a new approach, a new standard of setting the baseline.

The new approach was to set as minimum standard the people and the companies using best practices in collecting waste products coming from the appliances that they produce and/or sell, the so-called "front-runners". This approach is opposed to the conventional one, which sets as minimum standard the people and the companies using worst practices, the so-called "back-laggers".

That directive gave the day to the "front-runners" approach, setting a precedent that will undoubtedly influence further environmental legislation at a European and national level and potentially leading to faster attainment of environmentally adequate standards of living. It will be a challenge for us all to participate in this argument and put our weight behind the transposition of the "front-runners" approach in the national agenda.

It will, for sure, be a challenge for us all to reach the criteria of a sound environment, which we are all craving for.

The author is a member of the Malta Labour Party.