One of the leaders of the referendum No campaign, Saviour Balzan, this morning vehemently denied claims by the Yes camp that he had negotiated a spring hunting derogation for Malta during the EU accession talks.
He was reacting hours after the Yes camp erected billboards and issued a statement claiming that he had been 'instrumental' for Malta to retain spring hunting.
It said that documentary evidence showed that Mr Balzan had attended a Malta-EU negotiators' meeting in April 2002 when he and another Malta representative defended the fact that only two species would be hunted in spring in Malta. The EU representative had then confirmed that Malta could apply derogation to permit spring hunting of the turtle dove and the quail.
In the EU Common position paper of September 27, 2002, the European Commission stated:
"The EU takes note of Malta’s statement that spring is the main hunting season, and that in order to be in line with Article 7 of accession, the hunting regulations will be amended. The EU is also taking note of Malta’s intention to limit spring hunting to the taking of two species by applying derogation under Article 9 of the Directive."
Furthermore, the Yes camp said, at another negotiations' meeting held on July 11, 2002, Balzan insisted that the migration of turtle doves and quails over the Maltese islands in autumn was insignificant, and therefore the removal of spring hunting would mean the end of hunting on Malta.
The Yes camp said the No camp had lost all credibility.
BALZAN DENIAL
But in his denial, Mr Balzan said that at the time of the EU negotiations he was a 'backroom boy' in the environment ministry collecting data. He never negotiated an EU derogation for Malta, not least because Malta itself never negotiated a derogation.
Derogations, he said, were available to all EU member states in terms of EU laws, but they could only be accepted where justified and under intense scrutiny. Malta, he said, was the only country which applied a derogation for the hunting of quail and turtle dove in Spring. The EU promptly took Malta to court.
The personal attacks against him, Mr Balzan said, showed the Yes camp had run out of arguments. Their only argument was that they wanted to continue to kill birds, something they were not saying in their campaign