The Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry, as the competent authority for the Life+ programme, said it has received a good number of interesting project proposals under different strands of the Life+ Programme. Over 5.5 million euro worth of environmental project proposals were received.

Proposals were received under the Life+ Nature and Life+ Information and Communication strands. Project proposals submitted vary from nature conservation and restoration, including the study and reintroduction of species traditionally linked to the Maltese islands, as well as information projects aimed at raising awareness about flora, fauna and habitats of importance for Malta and the European Community. The Life+ programme co-finances projects on a 50 per cent – 50 per cent basis or to a maximum of 75 per cent for certain endangered species under the Birds and Habitats Directive.

This encouraging response comes in the wake of Malta’s negotiations undertaken since the submission of the Life+ proposal by the Commission. During the course of negotiations, Malta had to convince the Commission and the Council that a very important criterion in calculating the national allocation was being overseen. In fact, the weighting given to population density was not being given the importance it deserved, given its obvious impact on the environment. Originally the Commission argued that since Malta’s population density was so high, giving any consideration to this criterion would overbalance the whole set of criteria for all other Member States.

To overcome this, Malta came up with a proposal under which the population density would be capped at twice the EU average. The proposal was officially accepted following the minister’s intervention in the Environment Council of December 2005. In effect this meant for Malta that the funds originally allocated to Malta, circa €1,000,000 (Lm429,300) would now double and in fact, the funds allocated to Malta for 2007 are over 2.1 million euros (Lm0.9 million).