The Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change, Leo Brincat, gave his opening speech this morning at the 5th IMPEL Conference on Working Together to Improve and Innovate in the sector of environmental law, which is taking place in Malta.
“By hosting this conference we aim to share our country specific issues as encountered by peripheral island regions, particularly our small island state dimension with high population density, which in themselves require and call for us to be innovative in environmental policy making,” the Minister said.
He said that it was an opportunity to emphasise Malta’s commitment to actively participate in and promote better ways of implementation and enforcement of environment legislation.
The Minister said that it is the “Government’s intention to establish a new environmental authority that will be a strong player in Malta. The need to strengthen the authority by decoupling it from the planning function is a key strategic measure for this Government that had been welcomed and accepted by all stakeholders from the very first moment in which it had been proposed.
The Minister continued “Action is in progress for the preparation of a new environment protection act as well as the setting up of the authority, since Government believes that having a strong environment authority – that is on the same level playing field as other authorities – is the key towards effective implementation of environment regulation.
“The other key factor is to improve governance since implementation of environment regulations is based on the uptake of measures by the key stakeholders and actors at Government level, from the private sector and the general public too.”
“Malta recognises the importance of the protection of the environment and the social and economic implications that may result from a lack of proper environmental protection.
“The implementation of the provisions of the environmental EU acquis is our main objective. This can only be done by constantly strengthening the national institutional governance structures regarding all key issues,” he added.
The Minister went on to say “a strong but at the same time practical and implementable legal framework compliance system is the best way to avoid any systematic recurring problems. The electoral programme of the current administration clearly states that the environment will be at the centre of all initiatives and decisions envisaged on greening the economy and emphasises the aspiration towards economic growth that gives due consideration to sustainable development.”
He said that a “number of various bold and interesting initiatives are underway. such as, the demerger of the environmental and planning authority, the work underway on our new waste management plan and strategy, as well as the drive to strengthen air quality linked structures in line with our own programme, in full recognition of the concerns amongst the Maltese in general on this issue and the fact that the EU itself considers this year to be the Year of the Air.”
“As IMPEL is the network of environmental agencies tasked to ensure better implementation of EU legislation and its enforcement, not only do we feel that we are on the right track, but once the new environmental and resources authority is set up, we intend to sustain even further that momentum,” the Minister said.
The Minister said that “although since September of last year Malta had been asked to provide information on the conformity of our waste management programmes with the EU requirements, in January an official statement had been made that we were not in conformity with all such requirements.
“The need for the plan to be reviewed had also been identified and a review period by end 2013 had been set. We feel that we are on track to finalizing our waste management plan and waste prevention programme in a timely manner.”
The Minister added that “since last May one of our very first initiatives had been to set up an inter ministerial technical working committee on waste to bring together experts and policy makers, with the task of updating our strategy in order to be better placed to meet new challenges and address past shortcomings and mistakes. Be they technical, tactical and even strategic.
“Through an extensive public consultation process launched in July, key challenges and a strategic overview of the situation in this sector were addressed through a bottom up approach. This gave stakeholders an opportunity to participate directly in the formulation of policy and plans in this important area.”
He said that the draft document of the waste management plan, strategy and waste minimization programme should be launched within a matter of days.
“Malta has not only carried out such an exercise to implement our national commitments in the most practical and doable of manners, but also in order to pursue the challenge to view waste as an effective resource. Rather than drawing up wish lists we aim to develop measures that are implementable on the ground,” the Minister said.
“In the environmental field, this is primarily innovation in the way environment regulation is carried out on the ground. Without in any way downplaying the importance of enforcement – rather than basing on command and control enforcement for its own sake we need to stress the importance and improve on effective compliance by all stakeholders,” the Minister added. “This requires a strong element of continuous and sustained efforts of awareness and communication with them all”.
“By developing innovative ways for implementation it is an important challenge for us all to meet our environmental objectives whilst ensuring and supporting socio-economic development and growth.
“We look upon a truly effective and pro-active Green Economy strategy as a strategic tool that can leverage the means to help achieve implementation of environment legislation. The mind set whereby challenges ahead are perceived as threats should be abandoned at the earliest possible,” the Minister said.
“Unless we identify symptoms and problem areas and try to tackle them in the most pro active manner possible no one can expect any of us to come up with solutions,” the Minister concluded.