As he juggles with the delicate tourism sector, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco has been tasked with overseeing the reform of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, one of the hottest political potatoes. He speaks to Mark Micallef about the challenge ahead.

There is possibly no other reform that has been anticipated as much as the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Change at the beleaguered institution, which is responsible for some of Malta's most scarce natural resources, comes after brewing discontent over the last decade, which has sometimes reached boiling point.

Developers are frustrated with Mepa's rigidity, environmentalists with its inconsistency, and common citizens complain of two weights and two measures. And this does not factor in the real controversy.

Since 2007 alone, besides a stack of damning audit reports and news stories uncovering one inconsistency after another in the authority's decisions, there has been the resignation of a board, a vice-chairman and the criminal prosecution (which is still pending) of another two board members, one of them a board chairman.

And just when the government thought it had managed to close the lid on controversy with the appointment of a new chairman a year ago, it is now faced with another sticky situation, involving the development of a farmhouse in pristine countryside belonging to the president of the Nationalist Party.

Surely no politician would want to have anything to do with this. Yet, about a month ago, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco was thrust right into the middle of it and asked to take charge of the change everyone is hoping for.

"I think being in charge is too large a word," he says, smiling wryly. "The person ultimately responsible for it remains the Prime Minister. I am part of his team to implement it."

Still, the job comes as the parliamentary secretary deals with tourism, which, in the wake of the international crisis, is facing anything but a rosy period. Isn't this new responsibility a bit of a poisoned chalice? He laughs.

"It may be, we'll see... You have to take every single challenge as it comes along and hope for the best. This is like tourism, you get into it and do the best you can... I'm fortunate enough to have good people around me. I have good people at the Malta Tourism Authority, a good CEO over there, and when you have good people you know you can do this."

As with his assignment with tourism (his first government position) he has had to do much homework, because, like tourism, planning is relatively distant from his professional background as a lawyer. From what he has learnt so far, would he say that we are reforming a corrupt authority?

"I don't believe so. I think the truth is that it's a double-edged sword and it's always going to be very hard for Mepa to get it right because the interests conflict too much with each other.

"So, in truth, whenever an application is granted, you will always have an applicant who is satisfied and an objector who is not. So striking the right balance is very difficult. But I think we are doing our utmost to try to do what is right."

The problem with Mepa is inconsistency - with its own policies and with its previous decisions.

"This is what this reform is trying to tackle by bringing in more consistency... more accountability, more efficiency and more enforcement.

"If we can manage to push this through, which is a tall order, we would have been successful."

But the reform's most discussed proposal, shifting the drafting of policy from the authority to the Office of the Prime Minister, seems to suggest that Mepa is not to be trusted.

"I think there has been a bit of misunderstanding on this point," he says, pointing out that current legislation still requires the minister responsible for Mepa to give the green light to planning policy.

The reform is not suggesting that policy development should be taken out of Mepa's hands but rather that the government should have its own policy team that would allow it to make a more informed, strategic contribution to that policy, while retaining the final say, which it always had, he insists.

"In the UK, this is the situation, for instance. Government gives the strategic direction and then Mepa, as the regulator, follows. But Mepa is also a stakeholder, so when the government says 'this is my policy', the government is obliged to consult stakeholders, foremost among which is Mepa."

But the decision has also been criticised for being something of a throwback to the past when the minister in charge dictated planning in Malta, with disastrous effects.

He disagrees. "Ultimately, the decision on whether a permit is granted or not will remain with Mepa, definitively not with the government.

"But while the minister always had the final say as to what goes into the development boundaries, what we're saying here is that the government needs to be advised properly before taking that decision. So this is why having a policy unit will not be weakening a situation but strengthening it."

Surely then, if politicians are going to focus more on policy, to weed out the loopholes plaguing decision-making, they should take more of a step back from the boards deciding on planning applications. The reform for the first time suggests that two of the independent members on the 15-member main board should come from civic society, one from an environmental organisation and the other from a heritage background.

But this still leaves it with five government-appointed members and a chairman, not to mention the fact that both the main parties each get an MP on the board. Isn't this too much political involvement in the decision-making process?

If one eliminates the Labour MP, it still leaves the government with a minority on the board, Dr de Marco points out, adding that the reason for retaining MPs is to allow the opposition a front-row, scrutinising seat on the planning process.

"But then again, it's open to discussion and suggestions, it's certainly not cast in stone," he stresses, pointing out that this is also true for the idea that the representatives of civil society should be chosen from a list provided by the organisations themselves, to limit the possibility of a government-lackey being chosen as a token.

Going back to the policy unit at the Prime Minister's office, one of the hottest topics will be how the authority deals with construction outside development zones. It is, without doubt, the most controversial area of planning and most of the disputes are driven by the lack of a proper definition of what can be built in the countryside and what cannot.

Statistics provided in the reform document, in fact, show that as many as 39 per cent of applications for development outside the development boundaries should not have been submitted in the first place.

The definition the government is moving towards, Dr de Marco points out, is that only those developments which have to be in the countryside because of their very nature should be permitted.

So, in this category, one could consider animal farms, petrol stations or, agrotourism developments, for example.

"Obviously, you cannot have agrotourism in an urban area, so if we want to go down that route we have to explore the possibility. But we have to ensure that people do not abuse these types of applications."

But even in this case, he insists, the development needs to be placed in context. If EU directives require, for health reasons, that petrol stations should not be placed in urban areas, then the ones we do build in rural areas have to be proportionate.

The problem with this subject is that the Prime Minister committed to a zero tolerance policy in outside development zones time and again, yet questionable development keeps taking place, and even now that the reform has been launched the situation is still fluid. The government has said that the new guidelines will be developed once the policy unit has been set up.

"This is why we want to push through this reform as soon as possible," Dr de Marco stresses.

But what happens in the meantime?

"If we had to see what has been happening over the past year, there have probably been less controversial recent decisions of the Mepa boards in terms of what can take place outside development zones.

"If decisions have taken place according to policies which are now controversial, then I think those policies should now be revised. So what we're saying is let us stock take what the current policies and applications are outside development zones and basically see what needs to be rationalised to bring these incompatible applications down to zero."

But the reference to controversy brings us to a sore point for the government which is very current. Just as the Mepa reform is being discussed, a damning audit report is expected to be published, saying that the permit issued to Nationalist Party president Victor Scerri for the redevelopment of a farmhouse in a sensitive bit of countryside was irregular and should never have been issued.

"I think there are two aspects which one has to see in this whole controversy: One, was the permit issued in accordance with existing policies? If that's the case, are we saying those policies are not right for the present circumstances? Because in that case, what we need to do is change the policies. In other words, if there was a policy which allows, for argument's sake, a farmhouse to be extended by 25 per cent, and we're saying that policy is incorrect, then let us revise the policy, irrespective of who the applicant is.

"On the other hand, if there may have been a certain irregularity in its issue, then the Prime Minister has made it clear that he will not stand for it. And if Mepa has to utilise its article 39, (which can be invoked to revoke the permit), I have no doubt it will do so."

As for the outcome, the decision should be made public this week, he says.

Another area in the reform proposals which has raised eyebrows is the decision to retain the system whereby developers appoint the experts for environmental impact assessments.

The findings of these reports have often been criticised by environmentalists for lacking objectivity and, with a few exceptions, generally supporting the developers' side.

"Whether experts should be appointed by developer or by Mepa was one of the longest discussions internally," he explains.

"It's not an easy decision but we have been advised that in every country that has adopted the (EU) council directive relating to EIAs, it's always the applicant that engages the expert."

The study, in essence, is there as an expert opinion commissioned by the developer, no different to the expert opinion that a lawyer would produce to sustain an argument in court.

"There is a misconception here... the expert is not there to represent Mepa; he is there to represent the developer so the Mepa board has to see that expert opinion in light of what it is: an expert's report which is commissioned by the developer."

Some would differ, pointing out that EIAs are there to independently assess the impact a development would have on the environment.

But Dr de Marco insists the option which the government has gone for is intended precisely to safeguard the objectivity of the process.

The idea is that since there may always be issues with the objectivity of a report, rather than have Mepa appoint the experts - and by doing so, giving the process its own implicit stamp of approval - it is more advisable to have a team of experts scrutinise and even possibly criticise the EIAs presented to it by developers.

In fact, the reform document suggests the setting up of a team of such experts who will work with the environmental directorate and whose job it will be to vet such studies and advise deciding boards.

The move forms part of a strengthening of the authority's environmental function, as well as more emphasis on enforcement, which Dr de Marco also uses to challenge criticism that the reform is all about planning and not about the environment.

"One of the points the reform stresses is that we need to reinforce the environmental side of Mepa. We do recognise that there is an imbalance between the planning aspect and the environmental aspect, but we are addressing it.

"But we want to strengthen the environmental arm as well as alleviating it from certain duties, such as the management of construction sites. Should Mepa be dealing with this or should the Resources Ministry, which already has an office for this? This will enable it to focus and this will help us strengthen our work on the environment."

The crucial question now is when we will start seeing change on the ground.

"Hopefully, on July 31, we'll have the national conference. Once that takes place we then have to decide the final proposals for the reform and once this decision is taken, the idea is to start drafting the legislation immediately, followed by movements of staff. We're saying in the coming months."

See excerpts of the interview on timesofmalta.com.

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