Until about 20 years ago, Malta would probably have been classified as a Third World country or, euphemistically, a developing country. Now, its only real "claim" to Third World status lies in most of its roads and the standard of driving! It might have been thought that on joining the European Union, we would belong to the First World.

But last week's vote in Parliament on the extension of Malta's construction development zones marks us out clearly as a Second World country. It perhaps proved what many of us had long suspected, but wished not to admit, that our aspiration to be ranked with the First World may lie beyond our reach.

Two political economists , Alberto Alesina of Harvard and Enrico Spolaore of Brown University, who have explored the optimal size of nation states (their book, The Size Of Nations) define a Second World country as one in which effective government, the national interest and important long-term solutions to pressing problems - even the will of the majority - are invariably subordinated to minority interests, where these minority interests hold the balance of electoral power. Relatively small, special-interest groups are able to act in unison to suppress the rights of other citizens. To put it crudely, this happens when a small bloc of votes by particular interest groups can keep one or other political party in power.

Obvious examples of this in Malta are the hunters and trappers, illegal boathouse owners, some unions, certain businessmen and construction industry interests. Effective and fair governance in Second World countries can be paralysed by minority, vote-turning, single issue agendas, and their governments subverted into pandering to such groups to win their votes.

How else to explain the government's inordinate haste to push through a 10 per cent increase to Malta's development zones when there was no rhyme nor reason for such an extension? Why increase development zones when, by the government's own admission, there is sufficient vacant land within the existing boundaries to build almost 100,000 "units", whereas the likely requirement for housing up to 2020 is well under half this figure?

This is the central issue which no government minister, political apparatchik or their media apologists, with their self-serving arguments, have seen fit, or been able, to answer.

I personally do not believe the accusations bandied about in Parliament under the cloak of parliamentary privilege or otherwise but why then increase the development zones by 10 per cent? The answers given by ministers and their apologists are that it is "to correct anomalies", "to right social injustices", "for better planning", "to cool the property market", or, even more surreally, "to strike a balance which would also yield an economic benefit that would be translated into further investment in the environment".

These explanations simply do not stand up to close examination when placed against the fact that there is absolutely no need for additional land for buildings since existing building zones more than meet our forecast requirements for the next 15 years. Why, if there is no actual need - and, indeed, it is known there is already an oversupply of housing stock - create an even greater surplus of land for development, with all the consequences for the environment which this implies? Why open such a can of worms if there was no real public need to do so? All the logic points to concluding that the temporary development zones of the last 18 years were more than sufficient to meet Malta's foreseeable needs and should therefore have been made permanent.

The answer must lie elsewhere. And it lies almost certainly in a cynical calculation made by a government that knows it has the skids under it and is on the slide in public support and that there are electoral votes to be gained from granting development permits to those who will benefit from these changes - regardless of the environmental consequences or the long-term national interest. Whether or not that calculation proves right we shall not know for another 18 months or so when it is put to the test in a general election. My own reading is that, contrary to what the government hopes, it will pay dearly for its cynicism.

But what is inescapable is that the government's calculation comprises an approach which is endemic in Second World countries, and is to be deplored. An ugly attempt has been made to influence a special interest group - those hundreds whose land falls within the new boundaries - with a reckless disregard by the government for the long-term public interest.

The paramount environmental challenge facing Malta in the 21st century is the need to control building development and the way we use and share this tiny land. Of all Malta's environmental problems - and there are many - urban sprawl and land abuse are the most visible and pressing. The uglification and loss of quality of life which has occurred over the last 40 years - an uglification this vote will exacerbate - is due primarily to over-development.

The impact of excessive land use aggravates all our other environmental problems and also undermines our struggling tourism industry. It creates collateral damage in a number of related areas, including the coastal environment, cultural heritage sites, air pollution, waste management and the ecology of our islands. While better aesthetic standards would of course mitigate the impact of over-development, they would never undo the damage inflicted by the loss of our natural landscapes. This is to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.

A few months ago the National Commission for Sustainable Development, of which I have been a member since its inception, presented a first-class document entitled A Sustainable Development Strategy For The Maltese Islands. This highlighted vividly the urgent environmental, economic and social challenges facing Malta. But it also brought to the fore the snail's pace at which the Minister for the Environment (the chairman of the commission, acting on behalf of the Prime Minister) was prepared to tackle the problems. It has taken over four years to reach the point of presenting a strategy to Cabinet for approval. After more than four years we are as far away from starting the implementation of a national strategy for sustainable development as it is possible to be. And, no doubt about it, with the summer recess upon us, it will languish in ministerial limbo for several weeks to come.

One of the keystones to the successful implementation of the strategy is the so-called "integrated spatial development plan", which brings together all aspects of land use - undoubtedly the most pressing of all our environmental problems. But, extraordinarily, this is not planned to be in place before 2010. I questioned this dilatory approach at the National Conference earlier this year, to no avail.

I now understand better why the Minister for the Environment gave such a defensive and negative closing speech to the conference, in which he offered no vision for the future and no more than lukewarm commitment to the implementation of a National Sustainability Plan. This was, first, because he knew he was about to foist upon us the so-called "rationalisation" of the boundary zones - a measure which runs directly counter to a central tenet for the creation of a sensible and responsible spatial development plan - and, secondly, because the longer he puts off its implementation the longer he can avoid the hard political choices that have to be made. The knowledge that the consequences of such a delay are harmful to Malta holds little sway to the powers that be.

The vote taken in Parliament on July 26 represents an act of institutional vandalism on Malta's environment without parallel in the last 20 years. Those members of Parliament who voted for the extension of development boundaries would do well to remind themselves of the Maltese Constitution which they have so abysmally failed to uphold. Article 9 states simply and clearly that "the state shall safeguard the landscape and the historical and artistic patrimony of the nation".

The government had an opportunity to show that further large- scale building is not sustainable if Malta is to remain a tolerable place in which to live. Instead, it has blown it. The opposition, who were presented with an open goal, also fluffed it. Poor Malta, once rated among the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean! It has sold its soul to an incontinent construction industry, aided and abetted by short-sighted politicians, and now stands to be further ruined by even more tacky over-development.

With politicians like these, we shall never rise above being a Second World country!