Former foes to hold joint Mepa workshop

Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar, the environmental NGO once the subject of a boycott declaration by the chairman of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, will be co-organising a workshop on the authority's reform with none other than Mepa.

No specific date has been set so far but discussions are well underway for the workshop, which is intended as a part of the consultation process the Prime Minister has said should take place before the implementation of the reform.

The authority's decision-making process became a major electoral issue after it was at the centre of a series of high-profile controversies in the past years, leading Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to take Mepa's reform directly under his wing, promising wide-ranging reform.

The FAA was a protagonist in some of the more heated controversies. The criticism of a permit for a tourism complex issued at Ramla l-Ħamra, in particular, received a heavy counter-reaction by the authority's chairman Andrew Calleja, who declared a boycott on the FAA following the latter's call for the Mepa board members to resign. Mr Calleja later retracted his statement - after being publicly rebuked by then Environment Minister George Pullicino - saying he only meant that the authority would not give the NGO any preferential treatment.

The permit was eventually revoked on a legal point but more tug-of-wars followed.

In the coming weeks, however, the former foes will be holding a workshop together on what needs to change in the authority's present system.

FAA frontwoman Astrid Vella confirmed the plans, adding that the workshop will be taking up the suggestions made by the Today Public Policy Think-Tank, which on Thursday launched a detailed study on environmental action and the Mepa reform.

"We will be holding the workshop together with Mepa and also with the Office of the Prime Minister but all stakeholders will be invited," she said.