Labour and the environmental policy

As I had occasion to make clear during my remarks and comments at the very beginning of the plenary session of the recent “Issues” consultation meeting on the new national environmental policy organised by the Office of the Prime Minister, Labour will support this process and also give its inputs throughout. Proof of this was given by the fact that apart from attending the entire plenary sessions I also participated actively in two workshops – one on climate change and an­other on waste strategy.

Nevertheless, I would like to spell out the points I made from the floor following Mario de Marco’s positive introductory address to the conference since they reflect our official response to this worthy initiative.

The PL feels strongly that the whole exercise should be concluded at the earliest possible to avoid having the beginning of the implementation process entangled with the election run-up. By then one hopes to start seeing concrete results rather than just attractive plans on paper.

Implementation will be the key of the whole strategy. Something that found an echo in plenary by most stakeholders as well as during the various workshops. And to be fair, in Dr de Marco’s concluding remarks too.

While the PL fully supports the need for more collaboration between the public and private sectors on environmental policies and issues, it is even more imperative that as of now effective synergy should develop between various government entities such as the Malta Environment and Planning Authority itself, the Water Services Corporation, Malta Resources Authority and Enemalta among others, to avoid past performances where they often moved in sometimes diametrically opposed directions on sensitive and pivotal issues.

One hopes that any duplication of work will be avoided since most of the long laid down action plans of the National Sustainable Development Commission’s findings have remained shelved for ages while the Minister has now also proposed a new ad hoc legislation on sustainable development – which we support in principle.

Readers should recall that although after much effort we managed to secure consensus in the House on the need to shift from a structure plan to spatial planning, the government had made it clear that this can come about only once the new environmental policy is in place. The longer it takes for the new environmental policy to start being implemented the longer it will take for spatial planning to become a reality.

Although I feel very strongly about the need of synergy between various entities, it needs to be made clear a priori who is going to assume ownership of this project when so many government departments and agencies should be involved to make an environmental policy work as it should. Unfortunately, so far, many remain under the wrong impression that the environment is something that solely concerns Mepa itself and environmentalists.

Finally, while the government had instantly shot down the PL’s proposal – at the time of the Mepa reform legislation – that it was essential for Malta to have an effective environmental protection agency as distinct from Mepa’s planning arm, to the extent that the proposal was publicly ridiculed by the PM and voted against in Parliament by the government side, it was intriguing and ironic to say the least that one of the eminent keynote speakers during the interesting consultation meeting organised by the OPM was none other than Matt Crowe, the Director of the Irish Environment Protection Agency, who made a strong case about his agency’s way of going about its business in a separate manner distinct from their planning board.

We wish the government every success in its endeavours and remain committed to give our full support to this initiative. But understandably the litmus test will be the success or failure of the implementation process and the achievement of the targets set.