What do you think Alternattive Demokrattika has achieved over the past 15 years?

The first thing we achieved from day one was to have a third presence in politics. It is hard to reverse political culture. I do not think our task is complete since most people still don’t think they have an option when it comes to politics: people are born into a party and voting for another is out of the question. However, the fact there are three parties allows for neutral ground. AD contributed to making environmental values mainstream. Nowadays we have politicians who say that you have to compromise between development and safeguarding the environment, which is a complete heresy. You can’t have one without the other. However, AD has gone a long way to making our values mainstream. People agree with us even if they do not side with the Greens, but they do think in the same way we do, which is important because today, destroying our environment will destroy our tourist industry which will in turn destroy our quality of life.

After the successful results AD achieved in the last EP elections, AD seemed determined that legislation regarding the electoral laws should be changed. Has any action been taken?

We have acted – immediately after the election we wrote to the secretary generals of both parties to meet. They both agreed but as yet a date has not been set. For us, this means a lack of good faith on their part – which is not surprising. There have been talks about amending the electoral laws for a number of years – it is in the interest of the Labour Party to do away with the prejudices it suffers from. As was the case in 1996 and every election afterwards – having the same percentage /majority similar to that of the Nationalist Party – it always ends up with fewer seats. The Labour Party has an interest in making sure the system is changed.

We have been talking since 1995 with the Gonzi commission to establish an electoral threshold. With the success we had in the EP elections it is clear to everybody that a reasonable threshold will be immediately crossed by the Green Party. Instead of making it easier to go forward with electoral change, this fact has made it much worse as the other parties are reluctant to change the status quo.

Could you explain AD’s position on golf courses?

I think we have already made our position clear. Every application has to be considered on its own merit. The experts admit that having a new golf course will marginally improve the tourism product, but do not appreciate the massive costs involved to build it and run it. Fifteen hectares is a huge chunk of land especially when one considers how small Malta is..

The government asked the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) to identify two potential sites for golf courses. What are your thoughts about the relationship between the government and MEPA?

I think the government has a strange way of looking at MEPA. MEPA is supposed to be a planning regulator, not a developer. The government is asking MEPA to carry out an exercise which has already been carried out before. The government had appointed a commission which reported that the Verdala site was the best of all the short-listed sites. In the end, the Verdala site was entirely weighted against MEPA’s golf policy and found wanting. Any site indicated by MEPA would still have to go through the Environmental Impact process and can still fail. I do not think any developer – governmental or not – can ask MEPA to find sites for any kind of development.

Keeping in mind MEPA’s decision regarding the Verdala golf course, what is your reaction to farmers’ concerns to increased fragmentation of arable land? What are your proposals to address the problem of fragmentation of arable land?

I think the situation we have now is a result of a very poor decision taken in the 1950s to do away with site accretions – not only for agricultural land but urban property. If you owned property and this was being sold – you had the right of first refusal on the price it was being sold. This was very important to avoid fragmentation, which is something natural in agriculture. With the elimination of that law, fields have been split into small plots because when the original owner dies his fields are divided among his inheritors.

We also have a very confusing system of tenure as land is traded among farmers. However, since they cannot change the name on the title deed they have these very irregular word-of-mouth agreements between them. This makes it even more difficult for the farmers to do their job and for the government to adminster when it comes to rents and taxes. Accretion would be a good idea.

Since the 1992 election, the Greens have been calling for the sale of government agricultural holdings to farmers as agricultural land which would be safe from development, allowing them to acquire capital. Our position is similar to that of Third World countries where the income from government land is negligible and farmers are just farm labourers. In England for example, the farmers are tenant farmers as they are the owners of the property. Farming is a long-term business: you cannot expect Maltese farmers to invest in irrigation systems if they they are unsure of their position regarding their tenure of land.

What is the party’s stand on hunting?

Before 1996, the Labour Party used the restrictions introduced by the PN to attract the support of the hunting lobby. This placed the PN in an awkward position as they had to come up with new propositions to win back the hunting lobby. As a result the two major parties in Malta were completely subjected to the whims of this particular lobby. The wishes of the majority have been completely disregarded.

This threat which started in 1996 was carried right through to the last general election. AD could not care less what the hunters say – we are more interested in that 60 per cent of the country which wants hunting to be controlled. In the last election we had the hunting lobby cashing in on their threat for the first time. They stood for election – an election in which no party was chosen to govern so there was no pressure on voters. Their complete failure in the election shows that the fear of the other parties was completely unfounded.

What are your plans for the future?

To keep on working for what we believe in, and climbing to the top of the mountain. You must keep on working even when you reach the top.