The European Commission has decided to start legal action against Malta on spring hunting.
The decision was formally taken during the weekly meeting of the college of Commissioners in Brussels, the 25-member executive that found Malta in breach of the Birds Directive.
Although the decision has not been made public yet - it is expected to be formally announced today - Commission sources yesterday confirmed to The Times that the executive has decided to send a warning letter to Malta over the spring hunting of two species of birds - quail and turtle dove.
"The hunting of these migratory birds begins in March, during their return from Africa to their breeding grounds in Europe . On the basis of information provided by the Maltese authorities, the Commission believes that alternative solutions to spring hunting exist as this could take place in the autumn," the sources said.
"It is quite evident that we are not satisfied with the justifications brought up by the Maltese authorities to keep allowing spring hunting and that is why we have set in motion the first step in our legal procedure," the official spokesman of Commissioner Stravos Dimas, responsible for the environment, said.
Malta is the only EU member state where spring hunting is allowed. This is still possible as Malta currently implements a derogation under article nine of the EU Birds Directive allowing hunting on only two species and in line with certain rules. In order to allow this, however, Malta has to justify its position every year with the Commission.
Following its justification report presented to the Commission last November, the Commission had asked the Maltese authorities to submit more evidence so that a final decision could be taken. It seems this was not enough to persuade the Commission officials to extend the concession to Malta.
Commission sources said the Maltese authorities had claimed that hunting opportunities in autumn were minimal and thus a spring derogation was justifiable there being "no other satisfactory solution" in the terms of article 9 of the Birds Directive. Evidently the Commission does not share this opinion.
In their report, the Maltese authorities provided data from the carnet de chasse statistics for autumn 2004. In the view of the Commission these figures do not support the case that only minimal opportunities exist, the sources added.
Before yesterday's decision, the Commission had already sounded the alarm bells on Malta's spring hunting. In front of the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament last February, Commission officials had stated that preliminary analyses of the report submitted by the Maltese government indicated that the island's derogation allowing spring hunting was not in conformity with the Birds Directive.
Yesterday's decision by the Commission is in line with article 226 of the Treaty which enables the Commission to take legal action against a member state that does not respecting its obligations.
According to the Treaty, if the Commission considers that there may be an infringement of EU law that warrants the opening of an infringement procedure, it addresses a Letter of Formal Notice, that is a first written warning to the member state concerned, requesting it to submit its observations by a specified date. Thus Malta has been given two months to reply to the Commission's charge.
In a statement yesterday, BirdLife International welcomed the Commission's decision. Konstantin Kreiser, policy officer at BirdLife in Brussels, said the decision shows that the European Commission won't tolerate this any longer and that it has committed itself to take legal action in case Malta does not end spring hunting.
"This decision follows earlier judgments by the European Court against other countries and sends a clear signal that there won't be any special treatment for Malta.
"The Maltese government will now have to ensure that no spring hunting takes place from 2007 onwards; otherwise it will be taken to the European Court of Justice," he said.