Sceptics have always argued that the EU is too big and intricate for a small island like Malta as most of its rules were originally designed for much larger countries.

While Malta has succeeded in proving such assertions wrong during its 11 years of membership, the argument has returned to haunt the island.

Times of Malta has learnt the EU is insisting that Birkirkara should replace Valletta in a European environment competition because the capital city’s inhabitants fall drastically short of the requirements to compete.

The issue revolves around a competition titled European Green Capital Award, which is organised every year by Brussels.

The competition is open to all capital cities at the forefront of environmentally friendly urban management to promote good practices in achieving higher standards in sustainable urban development and in pioneering innovative solutions to environmental challenges.

Although the Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli had started preparations for the city to take part, his work had to stop abruptly after he was informed that Malta’s capital city was not large enough to participate.

“To my great surprise, I was told by EU officials that since Valletta didn’t have a population of over 100,000, it could not take part in this prestigious competition,” Prof. Dingli said. Valletta, which will be the European Capital of Culture in 2018, has fewer than 7,000 inhabitants.

“Worse than that, we were told that if Malta wanted to participate, Birkirkara could replace Valletta,” he said, visibly irritated.

The issue was also raised at the European Parliament by Nationalist MEP Therese Comodini Cachia.

In a parliamentary question she said it did not make sense for Valletta to be prevented from taking part in this competition.

She said the Commission’s one-size-fits-all approach in this case did not make any sense.

However, the Commission is sticking to its position.

In his reply, Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella insisted that the 2016 competition made it clear that just cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants were eligible to apply for the award. The rules also specified that in countries without such a large city, the largest city (in the country) was eligible to apply for the competition.

“Valletta has 6,675 inhabitants and is therefore not currently eligible for the European Green Capital Award,” Commissioner Vella said. “As Malta has no city with more than 100,000 inhabitants, the largest city –Birkirkara – would be eligible, despite having only 22,319 inhabitants,” Mr Vella insisted.