NGO BirdLife Malta's CEO Mark Sultana and President Darryl Grima penned an open letter to Prime Minister Robert Abela, accusing Gozo and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri of 'playing around to fool' the European Commission on the country's 'scientific' finch trapping derogation.
The organisation issued the letter on Independence Day, writing a few days after the ruling by the European Court of Justice on Malta's 'scientific' finch trapping derogation, whereby Malta lost the court case and was found, for the third time (2009, 2018, 2024) as not fulfilling its obligations as an EU Member State towards the EU Birds Directive.
Birdlife said that the sentence proved it right in stating in all available fora and platforms, including the media, that this derogation was "nothing but a ill-conceived smokescreen, and that nothing of it, was scientific or bearing a conservation value. We have been the ones that served our country with the right advice. Once again, we have been vindicated by the European Court of Justice."
Grima and Sultana said that as Prime Minister of Malta, the buck stops with him.
"We genuinely believe that you might have adopted a position to fully trust Minister Camilleri with the design and implementation of this derogation. With trust, however, comes also accountability. It is high time to call a spade a spade and declare that Malta cannot keep on toying around with farcical ploys to try and fool the European Commission or the European Court of Justice with similar derogations," Birdlife said.
It continued that the finch trapping derogation has failed twice, and the latest one, disguised as scientific research, fooled no one from day one.
Birdlife also said it witnessed Camilleri make an attempt to derail the course of justice of the derogation by repealing legislation, only to re-issue the same derogation a few days after.
It said that this was a move which the Court has seen through, despite the Minister's attempt at fooling the course of justice that somehow a new derogation was coined up after the opening of the initial infringement procedure.
"Malta now needs to make sure that we don't harm our reputation even further, since breaching such a clear sentence, would also question our country's position towards the rule of law," Birdlife said, adding that this is a serious matter that needs a decisive decision of high-level leadership.
It continued that contrary to what Minister Camilleri has already declared, the ECJ sentence did not just find only one fault in Malta's derogation, referring to clause 70 of the sentence in which the Court upheld the Commission's claim that Malta failed to state reasons for applying this derogation in the absence of other satisfactory solutions.
"Having no other satisfactory solution is the very basis for justifying the application of a derogation under Article 9 of the Birds Directive, and it is clear that in the case of the finch derogation, this could not be proven over the four years this derogation has been applied," Birdlife said.
Birdlife said that it was "disheartening" and an "offence to our public's intelligence" to have a European Minister blatantly twist the facts of a judgement by the ECJ after attempting to initially fool everyone that this was a genuine research undertaking as well as attempting to derail the infringement procedure during its course.
It said that Camilleri would rather cry victory than assume the political responsibility as would be the case from an Western European Minister.
Birdlife said that Malta needs to have a science-based Ornis Committee, as the current one is far from that, to give science-based advice and not politically motivated ones.
"Nothing stops the Minister from acquiring political advice from his people of trust, but the Ornis committee should not be anything but scientific," Birdlife said.
BirdLife Malta said it will remain working hard for bird and nature conservation, and when necessary, use all possible tools that our democratic country offers, to achieve this.
BirdLife letter to PM