Environment Minister Mario de Marco yesterday questioned whether Labour leader Joseph Muscat had an “ulterior motive” for suggesting the removal of environmental protection from the planning authority’s remit.

Is he doing this to look good with environmentalists or developers?

Dr de Marco said Dr Muscat’s proposals effectively reduced environment protection to one vote out of 15 on the Mepa board.

While saying that several of Labour’s proposals had already been proposed by the PN or carried out by the Government, Dr de Marco criticised the decision to create separate authorities for planning and environment.

This idea had been considered and discarded by the Today Public Policy Institute’s think-tank in 2008.

He pointed out that countries which had two separate authorities also had local or regional authorities for issuing permits and they included environmental directorates.

Referring to recent statements by Dr Muscat on land reclamation and rural tourism, Dr de Marco questioned whether there was an ulterior motive behind Labour’s plans. Later he also referred to Labour’s proposal to build another power station within two years.

“Why this hurry to remove environmental protection from Mepa’s remit? How will this create more efficiency?”

Dr de Marco was also sceptical about Dr Muscat’s claim that this proposal had been suggested by both environmental NGOs and developers.

“Is he doing this to look good with environmentalists or developers? Because you cannot keep both happy,” he said, later clarifying that Mepa, like a court of law, could rarely please both sides since their interests were so often conflicting.

The Environment Minister also praised the Mepa reform which he spearheaded and said 99 per cent of permits were now issued within the timeframes stipulated. Before the reform, it took on average 222 days for a decision to be taken by Mepa whereas the current average has been lowered to 75 days.