No irregularities found in 2006 revision of development boundaries

After three years of thorough investigations, the European Commission has not found fault with the way building development zones were extended by Mepa in 2006 and decided to officially close the probe.

Commission sources confirmed to timesofmalta.com this afternoon that the Commission decided to drop the case against Malta. This was because there was no sufficient evidence to conclude that the rationalisation exercise was a stand-alone procedure required an environmental assessment under the SEA Directive.

Following complaints by Alternattiva Demokratika and a number of people that the planning rationalisation process approved by Parliament in 2006 was not made according to the Strategic Environment Assessment directive, the European Commission in March 2007 decided to start infringement procedures against Malta.

The EU directive specifies that plans or projects which could have substantial environmental effects should be subject to an impact assessment before adopted. This was not done in the case of the 2006 MEPA rationalisation process. The government had argued this was not necessary as the process was a continuation of something which had started before the SEA directive had become effective in Malta.

The Commission has now decided to accept Malta’s arguments.

Out of the 387 infringement cases opened against Malta since accession, Malta now has a total of 32 open infringement cases. It had the biggest number of open cases - 82, in September 2007.