It took the government 30 months to fulfil its manifesto commitment to separate the environmental from the planning arm of the Malta Environmental and Planning Authority. The voice of the environmental authority in government has been muted, if not silenced, since 2013.
Whether this was a deliberate act to give the construction development lobby free rein for over two years or government disorganisation and maladministration of the kind the public has now come to expect, only history – and the people – will judge.
During that void in the application of environmental planning law, every advantage has been taken by those whose respect for Malta’s environment is minimal. Moreover, for two-and-a-half years, the so-called ‘Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change’ has been neutered.
It is against this background that the government’s just announced overdue plans to demerge the environment and planning authorities should be viewed.
In the face of public pressure from the Opposition, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Front Ħarsien ODZ and other environmental NGOs, the government belatedly agreed that the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Environment should take evidence on three Bills presented by it to bring about the demerger of Mepa. Unfortunately, it only had one sitting to do this, which, of course, is far from adequate considering the voluminous material to be analysed.
Without pressure from civil society, the government could have been tempted to carry on and rush through Parliament such important legislation.
It is, of course, imperative that when dealing with something as important as the country’s legislation governing its future environmental conservation, planning, access, oversight and use, the matter should not be rushed.
The Parliamentary Committee on the Environment – which is increasingly showing the planning authority it has greater commitment to the protection of the environment than those who supposedly have been given such authority – should have taken its time to examine the proposed legislation in detail and also weigh up whether it will actually strengthen the environment, as the government claims. But that was not to be and it is now evident the government only wanted to give the impression that it was giving consultation a chance.
The arguments for or against the break-up of Mepa have always been finely balanced.
The Church Environment Commission and some environmentalists argued that a regulator who was independent of the planning authority would give the authority greater strength in preventing further erosion of the natural environment. The Today Public Policy Institute put the argument for keeping environment and planning together in the following way: “The essence of good spatial planning in Malta hinges around land use. To separate the two functions would undermine the vital need for close coordination and integration between them. In the Maltese context they constitute two sides of the same coin to an extent not found in larger countries.”
An effective spatial planning process requires a holistic and integrated approach across government policy-making. There is concern the government’s proposals to separate the two will open the way to looser control over planning, benefiting the development lobby.
When dealing with land-use problems the decision on what is best organisationally should turn on one fundamental question: where should the government best deploy the environmental authority to act as the most effective check on the planning authority?