Parliament: Opposition wants stronger environment arm

Article from Malta Independent.

As parliament started discussing the Environment and Development Planning Bill yesterday, the Opposition raised a number of issues, particularly with regard to the importance that will be given to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s (Mepa) environment arm.

The Bill brings together the Development Planning Act and the Environment Protection Act, which is an enabling act complemented by a large number of regulations and legal notices.

Leo Brincat, the Opposition’s spokesman for the environment, sustainable development and climate change, demanded specific timeframes for the implementation of the Mepa reform.

“It is very important to have a plan for the implementation of the reform, with timelines,” he insisted.

Speaking about environmental protection, the Labour MP said that as things stand today, Mepa’s environment arm is purely consultative.

The Opposition is proposing the setting up of two agencies, one as an environmental protection agency and one for planning.

Having two separate entities is considered to be the best practice in the absolute majority of EU countries, said Mr Brincat, adding that having two separate entities ensures a balance between environment and development in the context of sustainable development.

Yesterday’s debate started in the morning and continued in the evening, after parliament voted in favour of a government motion for the ratification of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Transboundary Context.

Mr Brincat said a lot of tensions already exist between the environmental and planning units within Mepa.

He quoted statistics that show that bureaucracy increased when the merger between the two units took place.

On the issue of sustainable development, Mr Brincat said that segments of the law related to sustainable development have been deleted completely.

He said parliamentary secretary Mario de Marco said the government will be drafting a separate law that will deal specifically with sustainable development.

Mr Brincat said however: “We need to see the draft or framework of this law while we’re discussing the Mepa reform; we cannot vote blindly on the Environment and Development Planning Bill without knowing what the government’s plans are for the sustainable development law”.

Another one of the Opposition’s proposals relates to the parliamentary monitoring committee, proposed by way of the Environment and Development Planning Bill.

Instead of this committee the Opposition is proposing to have a parliamentary committee that scrutinises policies, as well as the way people nominated to serve on Mepa boards and commissions. The committee would be modelled on the Public Accounts Committee.

The Opposition is also proposing the removal of the old-hat structure plans, and instead introduce the concept of spatial planning, which other EU countries have been using since the 1990s.

This concept brings together aspects of planning, the needs of common citizens, the spaces around them and sustainable development.

Mr Brincat asked the government to say how it plans to cut abuse of power of incumbency, which was blatantly used in the run-up to the last general election.

Back then, he said, the number of enforcement notices reduced drastically, the number of permits issued increased substantially and the number of refusals reduced radically.

He quoted statistics that show that in the year before the general election, Mepa refused 1,990 permits. In the year of the general election this number went down to 125 in the first two months of the 2008, and to 16 in the month before the general election; after the election, the number of refusals increased to 150 a month.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Mario de Marco, who spoke during the first part of yesterday’s parliamentary debate, said that environmental protection and planning are the two sides of the same coin – the coin of sustainable development.

“Our main aim is to ensure that Mepa has the resources and systems to serve its roles. Environment no longer the Cinderella of development, but rather, it is a top priority for the people. The government is responding to this evolution.”

Dr de Marco said the government has started working on a national environmental policy.

He spoke about a number of aspects of the Bill, and about a number of developments that have taken place since the government started working on the Mepa reform.

By means of the new law, Mepa will have a chief executive officer and an internal auditor.

The mandate of the Development Control Commissions (DCCs) and the Board of Appeal will be extended to cover environmental decisions as well. 

In fact, the DCCs will be renamed Environment and Planning Commissions, the number of members on these commissions will increase from three to five, and they will all be full-timers.

Moreover, the Bill provides for the commissions to be chaired by graduates in environment and planning, not only architects.

“We have set up a technical commission to review the policies that have become obsolete, others that have diverging content, as well as others that can be merged.

The fact that there have been two separate laws possibly contributed to a certain sense of inconsistency, he said.

“Over the years, Mepa was criticised for being inconsistent in its decisions; one of the reasons was because a number of policies date back to 1992 when the Development Planning Act came into force. We may have had a number of policies that were valid back then, but no longer valid now. Others may have had diverging content. We needed a bit of a spring cleaning exercise.”

Dr de Marco said the government also intends strengthening the unit that scrutinises Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), particularly by having an independent monitoring process of EIA reports.

He also spoke about the drafting of a code of ethics for Mepa employees, as well as a code of practice.

He explained that the Bill was designed on four main pillars – consistency, efficiency, accountability and enforcement.

Dr de Marco added that the Bill provides for the setting up of an Appeals Tribunal. This board would be able to suspend projects if they involve developments in outside development zones (ODZ), if they involve scheduled property, wherever there are archaeological remains, or if they involve pulling down buildings in Urban Conservation Areas or in Special Areas of Conservation (SAC).

The planning process will be strengthened by means of a pre-screening process, which is intended to help reduce the period in which decisions on applications are taken.

The plan is for simple applications to be decided upon within no longer than 12 weeks and more complicated applications within 26 weeks.

During yesterday’s morning session, Labour MP Leo Brincat lashed out at former Environment Minister George Pullicino with regard to the way Mepa was run in the past.

Mr Brincat called for permits that were issued just before and after the 2008 general election to be scrutinised.

Earlier during yesterday evening’s debate, parliament voted in favour of a government motion for the ratification of the international Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Transboundary Context (Espoo, 1991).

The convention sets out the obligations of parties to assess the environmental impact of certain activities at an early stage of planning. It also lays down the general obligation of states to notify and consult each other on all major projects under consideration that are likely to have a significant adverse environmental impact across boundaries. 

Labour MPs George Vella and Leo Brincat said that while the Opposition is in favour of Malta’s ratification of the convention, it fails to understand why something like this was brought up for discussion in parliament when the country’s membership of the Partnership for Peace programme was not.

Dr Vella said: “I will not go into the merits of whether Malta should form part of the programme or otherwise, but why wasn’t it brought up for discussion in parliament, particularly considering that it was a new application for Malta to join the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council?

“This council was set up in 1997, after the Labour Party cancelled Malta’s Partnership for Peace membership, so Malta’s application was not for re-activation of its membership, but for a new membership.”

However Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg denied it was a procedure for a new application.

Speaking about the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a Transboundary Context, Dr Borg said Malta will have the right to information and to participate in the EIA process of major projects in other countries, such as the construction of nuclear plants in Sicily.

Dr Vella, on his part said that it was ironic that the Maltese are not even being given information about the adverse effects that major projects in Malta (such as the Delimara Power Station extension) could have on their health.

Labour MP Leo Brincat also commented on the convention, saying that the country needs to have its internal infrastructure with the administrative and scientific capacity to know the situation of major projects, both on land and at sea.

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