EU still probing 2006 extension of development zones

More than two years after launching infringement procedures, Brussels has still to conclude whether the 2006 extension of development zones in Malta was in line with EU environmental laws.

EU sources said the Commission officials were still sifting through boxes of documents sent by the Maltese authorities to establish whether the exercise was in compliance with the Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) Directive.

"The correspondence with the Maltese government over the issue is still ongoing. We are trying to establish the facts prior to concluding whether to pass on to the second stage of infringement procedures or to drop the case," the sources said.

Acting on complaints by Alternattiva Demokratika and a number of citizens, the Commission launched infringement procedures against Malta in March 2007, investigating the whole process that was approved by Parliament in 2006 amid widespread controversy.

AD maintained that such a huge undertaking should have been subjected to a strategic impact assessment before being approved by the planning authority. The process of the rationalisation, as the government referred to it, involved the inclusion of land, which previously could not be built, in the development zones.

The government argued it did not need to carry out the study because the process of rationalisation had started in 1992, well before the SEA Directive came into force in 2004.

Before being taken up by Brussels, the issue had already been tackled by the Maltese courts. In February 2007, the court had dismissed an application filed by AD to stop the planning authority from issuing development permits in the areas included in the new development zone.

The court had ruled that the extension process had taken place on the basis of provisions of the Planning Development Act and that the SEA Directive did not apply to this exercise as "the preparatory work for the changes of the development zones had commenced before July 2004," when the SEA Directive had been transposed into Maltese law.