Will Malta be able to meet its energy obligations towards the EU by producing 10 per cent of its requirements from renewable energy sources by 2020, as stipulated? Recently, the Resources Minister and the Prime Minister reportedly said that if the wind farm on Sikka l-Bajda failed to materialise, Malta would have to renegotiate its 2020 targets under the EU energy directive, citing size and specific circumstances of Malta, including deep water depths as the reasons to be given to Brussels.
This is unlikely to be allowed by the EU authorities, meaning that legal action would be instituted if Malta defaults.
The 10 per cent target for 2020 was set just over a year ago under a new energy directive. This would have to be amended if the target is to be altered. Such alteration would require clearance by the European Parliament and by the member countries of the EU.
The general target is actually 20 per cent of all energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020. Individual member states were given different targets based on their renewable energy capacity already in place. Malta is alone in not having any form of renewable energy production in place. On this basis it was given the lowest target among the EU member states. This was already a big concession, as the Maltese government had accepted a renewable energy target of five per cent of electricity needs by this year, and 1.25 per cent of fuel used in transport from renewable.
The 2010 deadline will pass without any project to get energy from renewable resources having started, other than EU assisted private laying of photovoltaic panels.
This newspaper's correspondent in Brussels reported that in April, the Commission's progress report on the electricity and transport renewable energy targets for 2010 had noted that Malta was still at zero per cent renewable electricity and unlikely to reach its five per cent target by 2010. The Commission had written to the Maltese authorities over the issue.
The situation should be clearer when the government finalises its National Renewable Energy Action Plan. This document has to be presented to the Commission by mid-year, according to the directive on renewable energy. Once national action plans are submitted they will be evaluated and published by the Commission.
It remains to be seen whether the government will have all the feasibility bricks in place in order to produce a coherent plan in time. Its proposal to set up a large wind farm on Sikka l-Bajda, off l-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa, has still to be assessed in total. The same applies to the proposals to set up two smaller wind farms, this time onshore at Ħal Far and in the limits of Baħrija.
Even if these three wind farms are set up, they would produce under five per cent of Malta's energy requirements.
It is not clear yet where the balance of renewable resources would come from. The projected link-up with Sicily would count towards the 10 per cent requirement. Much greater emphasis would have to be made on public and private investment in photovoltaic and solar panelling, and the production of energy from waste.
This is one area where membership of the European Union is proving to be particularly important. Such importance does not lie merely in the fact that Malta will be able to tap into substantial EU funding if and when it does restructure its energy supplies. The EU is setting down lines of action and exerting pressure to follow them - something which would not have happened had Malta remained out of the union.
This point is more forcefully driven home when one considers the water supply situation. This matter refuses to move out of the news. And good thing that it does not. Hydrologist Marco Cremona, who has been stressing his worrying thesis about potential grave water scarcity in Malta within some 15 years unless timely action is taken, was again in the forefront last week.
Then in The Sunday Times Tancred Tabone gave an interview which drove fresh nails into the public consciousness about the perilous outlook for the water situation in Malta. He too forecast a black scenario, with water running out for agriculture within five years.
Mr Tabone has no axe to grind other than the public interest. And he speaks with some authority. This government appointed him to the board of related public corporations for years.
So far, the detailed pressure piled on the government to address the water situation with focus and urgency has not elicited enough response, even though the criticism being made is not only convincing, but is supported with specific proposals on projects that could be taken in hand without delay and with relatively little expenditure.
Energy and water seem likely to remain major topics of discussion. The trouble is there is clearly no time to waste on either of them.