The hunter’s federation FKNK said the Prime Minister on Tuesday gave incorrect information when he spoke about hunting and trapping in spring.
On Monday, which was the first anniversary of the day when he said he did not care about the vote of the hunters and trappers, the FKNK said, Dr Lawrence Gonzi spoke on television about why the European Commission was taking Malta to the European Court of Justice.
Dr Gonzi, the federation said, pointed out that hunting and trapping was allowed in spring in the years 2003-07, that the ECJ had just decided a similar case relating to Finland and spring hunting, and that the commission was taking Malta to court on figures supplied by the FKNK.
The FKNK accused the prime minister that it was due to his government’s inefficiency that he failed to send the required reports each year for the years 2003-06 to justify the application for a derogation on spring hunting. Anti-hunting employees in the government had been empowered to destroy these reports.
Finland’s case had nothing to do about Malta’s unique situation, neither had the court decided on action as being requested against Malta, which is total abolition. Malta was the only country in the world which relied totally on migratory species for hunting, all other countries had domestic species to hunt. How could Finland, at the northernmost tip of Europe, be compared to Malta, at Europe’s southern extremity, the FKNK asked?
The FKNK denied that the figures in the report which at last the government sent to the EU, only for 2007, were its own, or were those supplied by hunters. That report was totally that of the department that had been infiltrated by the anti-hunting lobby.
The government’s senseless efforts to blame hunters and trappers confirmed only the lack of good will on the government’s part. The FKNK said the prime minister showed himself to be only half heartedly preparing to defend the hunters’ case and confirmed that all promises made by him, the Nationalist Party and the Malta-EU Information Centre were all made in bad faith.