The Ornis Committee, which was tasked with recommending whether or not spring hunting should be allowed, has passed the politically red hot potato back to the government, by not deciding.

The hunting season would be starting in the coming days and the government is faced, just days before it goes to the polls, with the excruciating decision of whether to ban hunting, enraging an already simmering and vociferous hunting lobby, or allow the sport to go ahead, disturbing the hornet’s nest of the equally vociferous environmental lobby.

The issue is being treated at the highest levels of the EU, where electoral considerations make no play.

The committee said after meeting on Wednesday that a majority decided that “in the light of the fact that the request for the issue of interim measures has not yet been decided by the European Court of Justice, and is therefore still sub judice, the committee resolved not to take a decision about whether it should make the mentioned recommendation according to the law’s provisions.

“This in order not to prejudice the position of Malta, particularly in the principal case about the legitimacy of the derogation applied by the Maltese government in the past years regarding which the European Commission has taken Malta to the European Court.”

At the same time, the committee added, it decided to ask for the advice of the Attorney General in the next meeting about the procedures related with the mentioned interim measures.