European Parliament hunting mission soon

A delegation from the European Parliament's Petitions Committee will be visiting Malta "in the coming days" to look into the issue of spring hunting.

The original decision to send a mission was made last February when a petition signed by 198,000 EU citizens called on the EU to intervene and stop spring hunting in Malta. The petition was raised by the Belgian ornithological society, Bird Protection Belgium.

Reacting to questions by The Times, the committee said yesterday it had recently decided to send a delegation to Malta "in the first part of May".

'The delegation to Malta will be led by Marcin Libicki, chairman of the Committee on Petitions, and meetings will be scheduled with representatives of the Maltese Parliament and the government," the committee said.

This is not the first time that an EU delegation will be coming to Malta specifically to look into spring hunting. A delegation from the European Commission was here during the spring open-season last year.