On 1 October 2002, Malta formally closed its negotiations with the EU on the environment chapter, including the agreement on hunting and trapping in autumn.

A special edition of Aggornat, the leaflet issued by the then Information Centre on Malta and the EU, MIC, gave details of what had been agreed on this matter.

This same edition of Aggornat is now at the centre of a judicial protest by four hunters who have claimed they were tricked into voting for EU accession.

The Church newspaper Il-Gens, specifically journalist Fr John Avellino, asked MEP Simon Busuttil to explain matters.

Among other things, Dr Busuttil explained, without being asked, that any information published by MIC on the result of negotiations on any issue, including this issue, was directly checked with the person who was involved in the negotiations. In this case, the person who negotiated on behalf of Malta was Saviour Balzan. Any information published by MIC had been checked directly with him.

In simpler terms, Dr Busuttil can be construed as giving an indirect reply to the judicial protest by saying that the object of the protest should have been Mr Balzan although he hurriedly adds he has no reason to think Mr Balzan did not pass on the correct and full information. MIC had also cross-checked the information it was given with other official documentation.

Saviour Balzan had been appointed as consultant by the then Minister for the Environment Francis Zammit Dimech who was minister from 1998 to 2003. In fact, on 14 November 1999, Dr Zammit Dimech told it-Torca he was still considering appointing Mr Balzan as his consultant. The newspaper claimed the agreement had already been sealed despite what it called opposition from some PN quarters. It also claimed that the appointment would enable the minister to tackle negotiations with the EU with regard to the hunters.

By August 2000, Mr Balzan was acting as a consultant. As reported in the daily press on 30 August, he took part in a press conference addressed by Assistant Police Commissioner Josie Brincat. Mr Balzan presented the newly established Environment Monitoring Board, which had been set up with him as its head, to help the police’s Administrative Law Enforcement section monitor the situation better.

Following the agreement reached with the EU, Karl Schembri, writing in this newspaper, interviewed hunters’ federation’s Lino Farrugia who claimed PN deceit on the hunting issue during the EU referendum and subsequent election. Specifically, Mr Farrugia claimed the deceit consisted in claiming an exemption on spring hunting when “this exemption is a right for every member State as written in the EU Birds Directive.

The article however quotes Mr Balzan as saying that Malta will be the only State with an exemption on spring hunting of quail and turtle doves.

Even before EU accession, on 5 March 2004, the FKNK was already expressing concern about the Ornis Committee (set up by Mr Balzan with himself at its head) due to the postponement of meetings without any explanation. The federation, according to l-orizzont, asked Mr Balzan what would happen to the committee if the deadlines stipulated by the EU were not met and who would bear the consequences?

By August 2004, following Mr Balzan’s resignation as head of Ornis, the new chairman, Joe Sultana, formerly of MOS/Birdlife, was already expressing concern that the EU “concession” on spring hunting might be lifted. The same issue was also referred to by Mr Farrugia, writing two days later in reply to this report.

By 9 January 2005, Mr Balzan was already expressing regret, admitting he had made a mistake when he accepted to be the minister’s consultant and sit on government boards: journalists should avoid such a conflict of interest.

In July last year, he warned that the EU would stop spring hunting in Malta.

When the issue came to a head, at the beginning of this month, Mr Balzan wrote a lengthy article on the paper he edits, MaltaToday. Leaving what he had to say about the present government’s policy for later, he wrote what he said was the truth concerning the 2002 negotiations with the EU.

The aim of the Nationalist government in 2002 was for the PN to win the referendum and the election. The negotiating team “under the guidance of Richard Cachia Caruana” pleaded with the Commission to include in the negotiated position the right for Malta to apply a derogation. The Commission could have made it clear that any member State had the right to derogate but the “agreement” was mentioned in accession treaty.

However, hardly had a year passed since accession that the Commission studied the application by the Maltese government to derogate according to the conditions in Article 9 of the Birds Directive and judged Malta did not have a valid reason to derogate and ordered it to stop spring hunting. But the Maltese government, acting rather like the homeowner who builds a washroom without MEPA’s permission, chose to ignore the Commission’s warning.

Mr Balzan, waxing typically sarcastic, criticised Environment Minister George Pullicino for speaking when he should have kept silent and for trying to justify the unjustifiable and concluded that this is all electoral posturing by a government led by people who had not been directly involved in the EU negotiations and who have given in to the hunting lobby. But ultimately, Malta will have to stop allowing trapping as from 2008. Sea hunting will only by allowed in autumn and only from boats with limited power.