The Government’s plan regarding the funds it will receive from the European Union as part of the EU Recovery & Resilience plan is not on has cracks in it, as the funds are going to be used “to fix the problems it itself created”, the PN said in a press conference. 

Yesterday, Government presented the plan as to how a €320 million funding received from the European Union as part of the Europe’s recovery plan will be spent.

In reaction to this, Opposition leader Bernard Grech said that Prime Minister Robert Abela and his Cabinet are deciding everything on their own, ignoring stakeholders, experts and NGOs, and still they were weeks behind in presenting it at European Commission level. It was not even discussed in Parliament and the only discussion happening now was thanks to the Opposition, he had said.

PN MPs Kevin Cutajar and Joe Ellis echoed these words, saying that the Government “only presented a few slides” of the plan.

“This plan is not in our hands, but only in the Government’s hands; this was only 20 slide presentation,” Cutajar said. “He didn’t even give us a day to prepare for the debate.”

“The principle point of the plan is the green deal and decarbonisation. When you look at what the government is proposing, one expects that it would be related to the recovery of the pandemic. However, the pandemic was barely mentioned at all,” he remarked.

Cutajar’s main point was that the Government, through its leadership in letting foreign population grow, increase in traffic and in construction, was leading the country to spend its recovery plans to solve the issues that all of these points have created.

“The government is focusing on the measures that he is proposing to take under the green deal. What is curious about this is that you have a situation where the government gave importance to immigration, where the population increased throughout the years. We also saw buildings being built left, right and centre. This increased construction waste and household waste,” he said.

“The EU funds are being used for the management of waste and pollution; this is the principle criticism. The Government is creating the problems, and instead of using them for our good, it is using them for the problems the Government itself created,” he remarked.

Cutajar also remarked that they expected that “we see more connection between the digitisation of the country and the recovery from the pandemic.”

Ellis once again criticised the Government for its lack of consultation, saying that “this plan was created only by the government without anyone else’s input.”

“This was certainly not what the European Union stated that they should do. They said that these should be consulted with political forces and stakeholders,” he remarked.