There can be no postponement of the introduction of this bill, minister George Pullicino told The Malta Independent on Sunday in a wide-ranging interview yesterday.

He aimed to clear up the air after a comment made by the Prime Minister at the end of a tour of roads outside Mdina in searing sun on Friday. Questioned by Super One’s Julia Farrugia, Dr Gonzi said it would not be the end of the world if the new tax comes into effect on 15 August instead of 1 August, but not if the implementation of the measure is delayed until the new year.

This led to the secretary general of the General Workers Union Tony Zarb calling the Prime Minister’s attitude “disgusting”.

In a joint statement issued yesterday, the representatives of the constituted bodies and the trade unions, in a rare show of unity, condemned the way government has been taking its decisions in this regard without any consultation with the social partners.

The representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Industries, MHRA, Malta Employers Association, GWU, UHM, and CMTU all expressed sadness that MCESD is serving as a camouflage instead of being a serious and structured forum where consultations and constructive discussions can be held in the national interest.

The organisations thus asked for an urgent MCESD meeting, with the Prime Minister present, “to establish clear and concrete procedures to ensure that consultation does not become a frivolous word but a reality.”

Mr Pullicino’s plan is that the bill, which was passed by the House at the second reading on Friday night, will go to a full discussion at committee stage tomorrow, both morning and evening and on Tuesday, and should be voted in by Tuesday night.

As regards the implementation of the bill, government was never tied to 1 August as the date of its inception, as there are still some administrative and technical issues to solve. But the law has to be passed and waste management cannot be delayed, he said.

There is some flexibility from the government side, he added, but this is not open-ended. A number of meetings with constituted bodies are also being held to iron out needed clarifications.

Mr Pullicino, both in Parliament and in the interview, hotly denied that no consultations have been taking place.

The process leading to this bill, he said, began in June last year and it had taken so much time because of long discussions with the bottlers who, in the end, could not come to an agreement.

Speaking in the House on Monday, Mr Pullicino said that discussions had also been held with the Chamber of Commerce and GRTU.

If the discussions had been prolonged, and the introduction of the eco-contribution had been postponed, it would have slid to next year, when it had already been announced in last year’s Budget Speech as a measure to be put in place this year.

With important discussions being on the cards with MCESD in the coming months, this also seems to be an important signal sent by government to MCESD: that government accepts the need for discussion but will not allow discussions to become of the round robin variety, with no conclusion in sight. Government figures have already spoken about how, with regard to the pension debate, people in government feel they have been led up the garden path by the social partners and this delay obtained nothing except further discussions and further delays.

Speaking in Parliament on Friday, Mr Pullicino complained that people like Charles Buhagiar criticised government for not doing anything except set up committees to do something, but then when government was about to do something the same people told government to set up committees!

Danish models

The present bill, Mr Pullicino said, is based on one of the EU’s best eco-friendly legislations, that of Denmark. Denmark, along with Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Germany, are the leaders in eco-friendly countries in Europe.

This is only the beginning, the minister said. To put in the whole Danish legislation would have created too much of a shock to the country and to industry.

Denmark has eco-taxes, clearly labelled as such, separated as due to, for instance, waste, energy conservation, etc. Malta has chosen to introduce eco-contribution on waste management only at first. Later on the rest of the sector will be tackled.

Furthermore, the Danish model has eco-taxes on 600 products including water and electricity pipes, adhesive tapes, packaging waste, etc

Mr Pullicino told Parliament that Denmark has three levels of taxes as regards bottles: 4c for small bottles, 9c for medium and 13c for large bottles. The eco-contribution for batteries is 70c in Malta and Lm1.40 in Denmark.

Some members in the House said that people who earn more than the Maltese are to be expected to pay more taxes, but Mr Pullicino argued that people in Bulgaria pay 32c per ton of waste and that even people in Albania, who are far poorer than the Maltese, pay taxes on waste.

The three options

In his speeches on Monday and on Friday, Mr Pullicino discussed the three options discussed by government and outlined their pros and cons.

1. Rates. This is the tax mostly used in Europe and it is also, in a way, the sort of tax chosen by the Sant administration in 1997. It taxes every door or else it taxes each house by its output of waste.

Government felt this would not work in Malta since Malta, of all countries, is the only country to have waste collection on a daily basis. It would be far too cumbersome to calculate the weight of the output per door on a daily basis.

As to the system chosen by the Sant administration, this was going to be a flat rate per door, regardless of the building or the area. Elsewhere in Europe, rates differ according to the area, whereas here in Malta the owner of a house in Ghaxaq would be paying just the same as the owner of a villa at Madliena. Government felt this was not a fair way of doing things.

2. The second option considered was a tax on the sale of objects. This could have given government a greater revenue and would perhaps have been easier and tighter to administer. But government felt it did not want to further burden retailers.

3. That left the third option: a tax or contribution imposed when the product enters the country, not when it is sold. Government also chose to introduce it on a limited range of products, so as to learn, itself, the administration of this measure.

Changes in the proposal

Following the various discussions that were, and still are being held, government has further amended the draft so as to make it even simpler to administer and to create less opposition to it.

The first misconception to be dealt with was that government was about to create a new authority to administer this measure. One opposition speaker after another fulminated against this, until the government side informed them no new authority was being set up and the existing structures would be used.

The second change regarded the part of the draft which said people could be sent to jail if they were found to be in breach of the law. This has now been changed on the insistence of the parliamentary secretariat for the self-employed.

A possible third change may be announced in the coming days. Many Opposition speakers complained that the bill and the eco-contribution make no difference, for instance, between a fridge that is eco-friendly and one that is not.

At first Mr Pullicino defended this by saying that the system would be worked on the basis of the customs number which does not make any such differentiation, and also that in the end, the waste generated by an eco-friendly fridge is just as much as that generated by an eco-unfriendly one.

But he told this paper yesterday that maybe there will be a different eco-contribution to be paid in respect of small fridges and big fridges/freezers.

The way the new tax has been brought in makes it easy for producers to come up with their alternative waste collection system, which will then make them exempt from the eco-contribution.

Consider, for instance, the importers of bottles.

There is already a measure of incentivising of glass against plastic in that one cent per glass bottle has to be paid on entry but it can then be used again and again, while a plastic bottle also costs one cent but cannot be reused.

And if the bottle importers bring into existence a system whereby their bottles are recovered from the waste stream, they will be exempt from the tax.

As for other products such as tyres and television sets, it costs Wasteserve far more to cope with their waste, but the price one pays has been kept low for social reasons.

Open for discussion

It would seem, from discussions held with various government persons over the past days, that government acknowledges not enough time has been spent in discussion of this measure and it would have liked to have had more discussion, but the coming summer holidays, and the need to get this bill on the statute books before the summer recess, have curtailed such discussions.

Nevertheless, Mr Pullicino told this paper, government is still very ready to hold discussions with all parties regarding the whole ecological tax reform. What is being introduced is not the fully-blown system but an introductory measure.

In his speech in Parliament Evarist Bartolo spoke of the Czech Republic's eco-tax system. Apart from considering that the Czech Republic is not normally known for its ecological supremacy, Mr Pullicino added that the Czechs have a system whereby they pay from 15 to 20 Euros per ton of waste, and this is paid on a personal basis, whereas in Malta it is the state which pays and in any case the state pays less than the Czech citizens pay for the equal amount of waste.

Government does have ideas about how the eco-taxes should be structured in Malta and will be consulting the country before it goes about the next step. In the meantime, the administrative capacity to administer such taxes must be built and the country made to realise that it must pay for its waste.

Mr Pullicino told Parliament on Friday that that very same day government had received, in Maltese, the European Commission's positive verdict on this new measure. Had this bill not been in line with European legislation, he said – thus giving the lie to Vince Farrugia who claimed otherwise – the Commission would have demanded further talks and changes.

Tackling the environment crisis

What is uppermost in Mr Pullicino's mind is removing as quickly as possible all danger from Maghtab.

Maghtab is still ominously active: all the waste dumped there over previous years is still boiling and creating chemical chain reactions beneath the cap.

There are poisons in there, which any accident, such as the shearing of the mountain, or the collapse of a part of it, could release into the surrounding air.

Over the next months no less than 600 wells will be dug on Maghtab and the resulting gas outflows incinerated.

As Mr Pullicino showed journalists on Friday, every day around 500 truckloads of construction waste are being used to fill up disused quarries.

The Marsascala Sant’ Antnin waste facility will be made bigger and better with newer technology.

The existing 50 bring-in sites around the country will be increased to 300 by next year, along with bigger regional facilities as well.

Waste separation at domestic level will be introduced in the near future.

Yet Malta will never have 80 per cent of its waste separated. Not even Germany can manage more than 40 per cent.

The collective expenditure on waste will top e32 million over the next three years, with the EU forking out e24 million.