The Prime Minister has described plans he unveiled on Thursday to split the American University of Malta between a portion of the original site at Zonqor Point, Marsascala and part of Cospicua’s Dock 1 as a “compromise”.

The compromise means that instead of the originally-planned 90,000 square metres of Outside Development Zone land to be dedicated to a private educational business concern, 18,000 square metres of ODZ will be sacrificed instead.

Many, however, are in no mood for compromising with even one square metre of the country’s remaining untouched land. Groups from environmental NGOs to university students have by and large been polite about this compromise and have welcomed the fact version two is far better than the first draft – in that that the ODZ land to be used in Marsascala has been reduced by no less than 80 per cent - but they have nevertheless still called on the government to rethink its Zonqor plans.

This situation and this continued stiff resistance to the use of any ODZ land for the project, or for any project for that matter, is, in actual fact, a situation of the government’s own making. It was, after all, only in the wake of the original Zonqor plans that Maltese citizens from all walks of life well and truly woke up to the ODZ crisis the country is facing. 

This situation led to one of the biggest environmental demonstrations the country has seen, last June, which, in turn, can safely be said to have had no small effect on the government’s mindset and eventual change of tack.

And as such, the fact that 18,000 square metres of ODZ land is to be surrendered for the project instead of 90,000 has offered them only a slight comfort.

As the Prime Minister yesterday concluded his third straight day of pseudo-campaigning in favour of the compromise – after Thursday’s fanfare announcement, Friday’s visit to cheering crowds in Cospicua and yesterday’s visit to Marsascala – the university’s student council, the KSU, along with a plethora of other student organisations and one of the country’s leading environmental NGOs raised a number of serious questions.

Student organisations have insisted that absolutely no ODZ land should be used for the development. NGO Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar has asked why the insistence on Zonqor, and since when is a sea view a priority for an academic institution. This question hits the nail right on the head. The developers have gone on record saying that a sea view is not a necessity but, then again, they have also said that splitting the university’s campus was not an option.

With the Prime Minister terming the new plans a ‘compromise’, one must ask who the compromise is between – what was the compromise between the government and the developers, or was it between the government and the environmental lobbies, or between all three for that matter (although no NGO has endorsed such a compromise)? As such, one senses that this compromise was reached with the developer rather than with anyone else.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that the contribution of the American University of Malta to the Maltese economy will start at €38 million per year and that will increase to a peak of €85 million a year – that would amount to an annual expenditure of €21,250 per student once the new university’s student body reaches the forecast 4,000 mark. The Prime Minister did not say whether that figure incorporates tuition fees or not.

The figures cited by the Prime Minister yesterday appear to have come from an interesting report on the matter, a report that the government should publish. And once it is at it, the government should also publish the socio-economic impact reports the Prime Minister has said have been carried out vis-à-vis the Cottonera campus, its agreement with the developers and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s study on alternative sites for the campus.

At the end of the day, the American University of Malta project is a pure business venture aimed at fee-paying and mostly foreign students. And apart from a handful of scholarships that will apparently be handed out to Maltese students to follow courses at this new university, it is difficult to see how this educational project stands to improve the quality of life of the nation as a whole – at least not so much as to justify the giveaway of any large tract of virgin, public land. Perhaps details of the report on the €85 million injection into the Maltese economy will shed more light on the matter.

At the end of the day, 90,000 or 18,000 square metres makes little difference to neither the veteran nor the newfound environmental lobbyists – public ODZ land is still being sacrificed for a private business concern, and reducing the amount of land concerned, even by 80 per cent, makes little difference to the principle at stake.