Matthew Vella
MEPs from the European People’s Party (EPP) and the European Green Party have clashed over whether three petitions concerning the Ramla l-Hamra project, should be reopened after they were dropped by the EP’s petitions committee.
The petitions, filed by two Maltese residents and Alternattiva Demokratika secretary-general Victor Galea, concern the alleged breach of EU environmental law in the award of the permit for the Ramla l-Hamra villa development.
Last month, the petitions committee dropped the petitions when the European Commission said the application had already been rejected, and after Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil (EPP) said the application had been rejected following “public pressure”.
The petitions were dropped there and then.
But the Ramla project was actually turned down by MEPA’s development control commission (DCC) only after a public pathway was discovered running through the property.
Subsequently, the developers filed an appeal against the judgement, which will be heard on 28 November.
Both the Commission and Busuttil however, failed to mention that the application was still subject to the appeal.
Now the Maltese petitioners have informed the committee that the Ramla permit has not been entirely rejected, and was still pending an appeal.
Green MEP David Hammerstein has asked for the petition to be reopened, presenting a newspaper cutting that reported that the permit was still under appeal, and that Busuttil had failed to mention this detail.
MaltaToday is informed that the European People’s Party has protested the re-opening of the petition, demanding that Hammerstein provides written proof of the project not being yet rejected.
But the next meeting of the petitions committee is scheduled for 1 December 2008, when the decision over Ramla will have already been taken.
Questions sent to both the EPP’s Malta spokesperson and Simon Busuttil were not yet answered by the time of going to print.
The petitions were dropped after the Commission said it was informed in September 2007 by the Maltese government that no permit would be awarded for the project – although the MEPA board did not reject the application until 4 October, 2007.
“Consequently, there are no grounds for identifying a breach of EU environmental law and no further action is proposed,” Commission official Patrick Wegerdt said.
Simon Busuttil also made no reference to the pending appeal, filed in December 2007.
“Very briefly, this happens to be a case in which, due to public pressure, the authorities have had to reject an application for development that had caused a great deal of environmental concern and the application in question has been rejected by the national authority.
“So I think that here is a case where, on the basis of public pressure, the authorities do move and when the public is right, that right is given to them. That is why I agree with the Commission that there is absolutely no basis for continuing with the petition – precisely because of the pressure created by this petition the application in question will now not proceed,” Busuttil told MEPs.
The Committee therefore closed the petitions.

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt

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