Brussels bases stand on Finnish precedent

European environmental lobby groups that spoke to The Times are certain the European Commission will soon issue a reasoned opinion over Malta's stand on spring hunting, and then follow it up with a court case.

The Commission has still to evaluate the government's technical and political arguments in response to infringement procedures started by Brussels last July over spring hunting.

A spokesman for Bird Protection Belgium, one of the most vociferous EU lobby groups campaigning against spring hunting in Malta, said that despite the arguments raised by the Maltese government recently, there is already "very clear EU jurisprudence over the issue".

"Malta's is identical to a Finnish case, particularly that dealing with the island of Aaland. The Finnish authorities had also tried to allow the continuation of spring hunting invoking the same arguments as Malta to justify the application of the derogation. At the end of the day, the European Court of Justice rejected those arguments and spring hunting in Aaland had to stop. The same will happen in Malta. There is no way out," the spokesman said.

The Maltese authorities are aware of the case, so much so that it was also included in the government's response to the Commission's infringement procedure.

Replying on behalf of the government, Foreign Minister Michael Frendo wrote that "the government is aware that the Commission considers itself constrained by the decision of the European Court of Justice (Commission vs Finland), the facts of which do not necessarily find a parallel in Malta's case".

On August 1, 2003, the Commission took Finland to court over failure to apply a derogation under article 9 of the Birds Directive in line with the provisions and criteria laid down in the same directive.

Finland was allowing the continuation of hunting in spring in relation to a number of bird species including eider, golden eye, red-breasted merganser, goosander, velvet scoter and tufted duck. That, it argued, was possible in terms of a derogation allowed under the Birds Directive, as there was no other option but to hunt such species in spring.

However, the Commission maintained that the form of hunting allowed during spring in Aaland did not meet the requirement that there "be no other satisfactory solution" or the one relating to "the taking of birds in small numbers".

The Commission insisted that, in the case of the bird species at issue, there were satisfactory solutions other than spring hunting, both in mainland Finland and on the island of Aaland. Basing its argument on a study by the Finnish authorities, the Commission declared that "all or nearly all the species that may be hunted in spring are generally present in autumn too in the territories where spring hunting is practised. Thus, spring hunting could not be justified by the fact that the same species are not present in autumn".

As to the provision dealing with small numbers, the Commission argued that, according to the Ornis committee, "small numbers" is to be understood as meaning under one per cent of the average annual mortality rate of the species in question. The Commission said such requirement was not being met by the Finnish authorities.

After evaluating the case, the ECJ had, on December 15, 2005, found in favour of the Commission and ordered Finland to change its legislation and ban spring hunting. The court also ordered Finland to pay the costs of the case.

In a recent interview in Tieqa fuq l-Ewropa, Allied Newspaper's EU television programme, Finnish MEP Satu Hassi said Malta will have to follow the case of Aaland.

"The Finnish government had used exactly the same arguments Malta is using now. The court was very clear and I am sure Malta will have to follow suit. Hunting will have to be done only in autumn. Malta is no exception," he said.