With reference to the editorial titled “Yes, that’s why we joined the EU” certain clarifications are due (TMIS, 27 April).

Who says that the Maltese population voted for the EU to have spring hunting banned? Did all those who cast a yes vote specify their reason to the editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday? All voters knew that the retention of spring hunting was on the accession agenda of the PN government.

“The EU called our bluff,” the editor wrote. But I ask, who was bluffing? Was it Saviour Balzan sent to negotiate spring hunting? Was it the Prime Minister of the time, Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, now President of Malta? Was it Dr Joe Borg, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and now EU Commissioner? Was it Dr Lawrence Gonzi, then Deputy Prime Minister, and now Prime Minister?

The hunters knew that spring is the breeding season; the EU knew that, the Maltese government knew that, everybody with one iota of intelligence knew that. So why did the EU not object to spring hunting then? Obviously because they wanted Malta to join so much that they did not want to risk alienating the hunters and their precious decisive votes.

Lately, however, the anti-hunting lobby has raised the issue to an unprecedented level, and unjustly created more animosity towards Malta, especially us hunters. Take the letters by the modern godless fundamentalists for whom a bird is more important than a human being. They want to “Europeanise” Malta, making it unrecognisable. Saying that “hunting is a throwback to an atavistic past”, the editor conveniently forgets that the modern EU itself acknowledges the right to hunt and believes in the practice of sustainable hunting. It is only tree – huggers, atheists, animal rights activists, abolitionists and other fanatics who consider hunting “gross”. But for 17,000 Maltese and about 10 million hunters in the other EU States, hunting is a deeply ingrained way of life, and that is how it will remain. And politicians and opinion-makers had better understand that.

The editor referred to other methods of controlling hunting in Malta but did not enlighten readers about those methods. Instead, he chose to insult all hunters by calling us “Europe’s last primitives”. All over Europe things are happening that should shame those who come to Malta to criticise, and those who help them do it. The only difference is that editors of national newspapers overseas have better things to do than embark on Don Quixote crusades to publicise their personal agendas.

On the question of hunters’ taking over the countryside, from his office in St Julian’s, the editor apparently is not aware of the many Maltese families who picnic in the countryside on weekends, or about the country walking tours for tourists advertised in brochures by the Malta Tourism Authority.

If, according to him, law enforcement seems to be so difficult, maybe he can explain why law enforcement is for some, but not for others. “No EU will save even one bird,” he wrote. So what is the EU there for? Is it there to correct injustices by creating new ones? Is it there to trample on the rights of minorities under the cloak of legality? Judging by the recent ECJ decision that would seem to be the case.



David Borg Cardona

MARSASCALA