Scicluna calls on EC to ensure Malta complies with Water Framework Directive

In a parliamentary question, Scicluna warned the Commission that current practices had led to Malta facing an imminent crisis of its groundwater supply.

 “According to scientific evidence Malta has the highest groundwater extraction density in the world. As a result we face the grave possibility that by 2025 we will run out of ground water fit for human consumption,” the Labour MEP warned in his parliamentary question.

The EU’s Water Framework Directive stated that Member States must promote sustainable and environmentally friendly water consumption practices.

In 2000, the EU set a deadline of December 2009 for Member States to file their national water management policies on the implementation of the Directive. However, the Maltese government had failed to meet the deadline.

“I want to know what guarantees the Commission can give Maltese citizens that they will not lose their only source of natural groundwater because of their government’s failure to keep to EU law,” Scicluna concluded his PQ.

Government reaction
In a terse reply issued in the evening, Resources and Rural Affairs’ Minister George Pullicino accused the Labour MEP of “not knowing what is happening in Malta or else wanting to damage the process that the government has already started”.

In his statement, Pullicino claimed that the Government had taken “three concrete measures” to control the groundwater supply.

The first measure included the continuation of the registration process for spieri and boreholes that there were in Malta, which showed that there were around 8,000 boreholes registered.

The second measure was the obligation of all those who supply water with bowsers to have a special MRA licence so that they could continue supplying water as well as the installation of a tracking system on each registered bowser to enable verification of from where was water being extracted and where it was being taken.

The final measure was the enactment of Legal Notice 241 which obliges all those who have a borehole to install a meter except in “exceptional case”.

The installation of this meter would require payment of a fee, except in the case of farmers, where EU funds will be used to make their payments.