Brussels is studying an “execution action plan” submitted late by the Maltese authorities on the monitoring of “inland surface waters” following the threat of fresh infringement procedures, which this time could lead to fines.

A spokesman for the Commission told The Times that the EU executive had decided to re-start infringement procedures against Malta after it ignored the Commission’s questions on how it was going to comply with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling on the matter.

In its judgment, the ECJ declared that Malta had failed to fulfil its obligations under the Water Framework Directive to establish monitoring programmes on the status of inland surface water.

The spokesman said that after the court ruling and a letter sent to the Maltese authorities, the Commission last week sent another letter of formal notice after getting no response from Malta.

However, it seems the issue has now been addressed by the Maltese authorities, which have sent in the requested information.

Malta had been highly critical of the procedures started against it by the Commission over this issue as originally this legislation was intended for member states that unlike Malta have lakes and rivers.

However, the Commission has argued that even though the island’s inland surface waters are limited and normally consist of small wetlands formed temporarily by rain and running water, it still has surface waters.

Malta had maintained that no monitoring programmes were established since the scientific methods for monitoring surface waters prescribed by the Water Framework Directive could not be applied to the local context.

“Malta’s inland surface waters are very small and generally temporary since water flow occurs mainly through rainfall. These features make them unique to the islands. Other technical considerations, such as a lack of historical scientific data trends on Malta’s inland surface waters makes the scientific monitoring methods required by the Directive unsuitable to Malta’s case,” the government had insisted.

However, in its judgment the ECJ threw out Malta’s main arguments and pointed out that the country was still bound to observe the Water Framework Directive.

Although small, Malta has a number of inland surface waters, particularly in the north, related to streams, water courses and valleys. These include Wied il-Baħrija, Wied il-Luq, Wied tal-Lunzjata, Simar, Salini and il-Magħluq in Marsascala.

Meanwhile, the Commission has decided to start infringement procedures against the island on Malta’s non-conformity with the EU’s waste legislation on the management of waste from extractive industries.

The Commission said that its services consider that Malta did not correctly transpose the provision of parts of its Directive (2006/21/EC) and has given the island two months to make the necessary corrections.