The court case instituted by the Commission against Malta that is pending in the European Court is being not only compared but paralleled with a case instituted by the Commission against Finland, the Aaland islands case.

The Federation for Hunting & Conservation – Malta (FKNK) contends that in fact, the only parallelism that exists between the two cases is that in the pre-accession period both countries were promised that their traditional spring hunting would continue, and in the post-accession period both countries’ respective governments and the EU reneged on their guarantees.

In 2003 the Malta/EU Information Centre (MIC) made an unequivocal stand in printed fact sheets and flyers sent to each hunter’s and trapper’s household, to explain how their traditional passions would be safeguarded on EU membership. The deputy head of MIC, Mr Edward Demicoli, was on the forefront to convey this message to hunters and trappers. Now after enjoying this position for 10 years, Mr Demicoli is contesting the June European Parliament elections on a PN ticket.

The irony of this situation is that in his campaign launch, he publicly stated that he will ‘serve’ Malta by making sure that the Maltese socio-cultural traditions of spring hunting and trapping will stay banned from the Maltese islands. Spring hunting and trapping were banned for the first time in Malta’s history by a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities for ONLY the spring of 2008 and is pending a final decision for the years 2004 to 2006.

The excuse used by Mr Demicoli, but also by other quarters, for this inconceivable UTurn is the ‘Finland Case Parallel.’

Apart from the promises stated above, Malta’s case has no parallel with Aaland’s. Firstly, Malta is not contesting spring hunting of seven species, but only two. Secondly, unlike the Aaland birds, Malta’s two species are widespread and prolific, with European populations reaching up to a combined total of approximately 28,000,000 specimens. These two species are both listed under the taxon ‘Least Concern’ on the Red Data list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – last update 19th May 2008. Thirdly, the nature of Malta’s topography is completely different from Aaland.

Leaving apart land availability and population density, unlike Finland, Malta is not arguing about seabirds, about the foreshore or the sea, which are accessible to all hunters. Malta’s argument concerns ‘land’ species, and these birds occur in specific land areas which are not accessible in autumn, rather late summer, to the vast majority of hunters and trappers (the Commission is incorrectly and with no solid scientific evidence stating that Maltese hunters and trappers can still hunt the same two species in autumn instead of spring). A contention that the Commission itself seems unwilling to factually verify, since it has repeatedly refused to accept an invitation issued by the FKNK to hold serious field-fact-finding missions in Malta during the full length of both seasons.

Also, the European Court in its Finland case judgement prevented the Finnish government from applying a derogation to allow spring hunting on six of the seven contested species.

Whereas in Malta we can only hunt these two migratory species, in Finland other birdspecies, both migratory and native, and bigger ground-game, such as deer and moose, may be hunted during most time of the year, including in spring.

There are other differences between the Finnish Aaland islands and the Maltese islands which would require elaborate explanations beyond the scope of this clarification. But what is certain is that, apart from a retraction of the EU pre-accession promise of the continuation of spring hunting, there is absolutely nothing in common between the Malta and Finland case. The argument of parallelism, therefore, has been shown to be superficial and nothing short of a lame excuse.

Joe Perici Calascione

PRO – FKNK

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