EU clears Malta over extension of zones

Malta did not breach EU laws in the way it extended the building development zones in 2006, the European Commission has found, dropping its three-year probe into the matter.

"There is not sufficient evidence to conclude that the rationalisation exercise was a stand-alone procedure which qualifies as a plan requiring an environmental assessment under the Strategic Environment Assessment Directive," a Commission spokesman said. The so-called rationalisation process had increas-ed the amount of virgin land that could be developed.

The government justified the unpopular decision by arguing that the process was necessary to right the wrongs of the haphazard development sprawl in the 1980s.

According to Commission sources, the College of Commissioners decided to close its legal procedures against the island after sifting through hundreds of documents sent by the government justifying the extension.

The Commission had decided to start infringement procedures against Malta in 2007 following complaints by Alternattiva Demokratika and a number of individual citizens. They argued that the planning rationalisation process approved by Parliament in 2006 breached EU law because it was not subject to an environmental study known as Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA).

An EU directive specifies that projects which could have substantial environmental effects should be subject to an impact assessment before adopted. The government argued that this was not necessary as the rationalisation exercise was the continuation of a process that had started before the SEA directive became effective in Malta.

To back up its claims, it sent to Brussels stacks of reports and studies going back to what it said was the start of the process in 1992.

On the other hand, a five-page dossier presented to the EU Executive by Alternattiva Demokratika argued that the zones extension exercise should have been subject to the EU directive because of its impact on transport, water use and limited open spaces in Malta.

Before being taken up by Brussels, the issue had already been tackled by the Maltese courts.

In February 2007, a court dismissed an application filed by AD to stop Mepa from issuing development permits in the areas included in the new development zone. The court had found that the extension process had taken place on the basis of provisions in the Planning Development Act.

It also ruled 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", the period when the directive was transposed into Maltese law.