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The European Commission is investigating the government’s golf plans after a complaint on this issue was lodged by Labour MEP Joseph Muscat on Wednesday.
Government announced there was need for two golf courses in Malta and one in Gozo back in June 2005, proposing Xaghra l-Hamra in the north of the island as the ideal site for one of the courses.
Environment Commission Stavros Dimas invited Muscat to lodge a formal complaint to enable the Commission to investigate further on whether the Maltese government’s policy to develop golf courses should have been subjected to an environmental impact assessment as required by the EU’s strategic environment assessment (SEA) Directive.
Muscat lodged his complaint on Wednesday.
The SEA Directive lays down a mandatory EIA on all plans affecting the environment. The directive ensures that all environmental consequences of certain plans and programmes are identified and assessed during their preparation and before their adoption.
After the adoption of the plan or programme the public is informed about the decision and the way in which it was made.
The Directive states that “an environmental assessment shall be carried out for all plans and programmes which are prepared for agriculture, forestry, tourism, town and country planning or land use.”
In his complaint Muscat pointed out the plan to develop three golf courses falls under the scope of the directive because this plan is clearly related to tourism and to land use, saying the three courses would consume some 60 hectares of land each – equivalent to 0.56 per cent of the Maltese islands’ total surface area.
Muscat also pointed out that since 30 per cent of Malta’s surface area is already built up, the development of three golf courses would equate to 0.8 per cent of the total non-developed area.
The SEA Directive also states that an EIA should take place on plans which set the framework for future development which falls under the EIA directive or the directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Flora and Fauna.
Muscat pointed that the development of a single golf course in Malta would require an EIA. He also said that given the country’s limited size, the proposed sites for the golf courses would destroy vast tracts of still unspoilt garigue, which are amongst the most important of natural habitats in the Maltese islands.
In an earlier reply to Muscat’s questions the Commission had stated that the directive only applied to plans and programmes and not to individual projects.
But Muscat followed up the reply by calling on the Commission to state whether a plan to develop a number of land-consuming golf courses in a country where land is so limited, should be subject to the evaluation required by the directive.
So far, no study has ever been conducted on the environmental viability of having three golf courses as golf course applications are subjected to individual EIAs.
The Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment is contending the plan to develop Xaghra l-Hamra and other areas into golf courses do not fall under the scope of the SEA Directive “since there is no plan or programme, as defined in the directive, relating to the development of golf courses.”
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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