The Parliament of Malta began discussing its long-awaited planning appeals reform on Monday by opening the Second Reading of this Bill. The main element of this reform proposes for all development works on a planning application to be suspended once an appeal against its permit is filed.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Employment, Jonathan Attard, told Parliament that these changes come with responsibility and that once introduced, authorities and lawmakers must watch if this system is being abused.

With the Second Reading of this Bill finally being heard in Parliament, the final legislative talks are now underway for this change to come into force. The technicalities behind this reform were published earlier this summer, just before Parliament commenced its summer recess.

On Monday, Minister Attard stated that the government had received what he referred to as relevant criticism vis-à-vis appeals to development permits before drawing up this reform. He told the House of Representatives that people were right to argue that appeals against certain developments were being undermined every time that works related to that development went ahead before judiciary bodies issued a sentence in favour or against one or many appeals.

This reform is expected to pass once this Bill passes through Parliament's legislative stages over the coming plenaries. Both sides of the House have spoken in favour of this reform in recent months, with PN MP Toni Bezzina reconfirming the Opposition's support on Monday.

Opposition MP Bezzina stated that while his parliamentary group is in favour of this Bill, the PN Opposition holds reservations behind the way the Labour government has handled planning in the last 13 years it has been in government.

He remarked that part of the country's problem lies in its lacking long-term planning. Bezzina called for planning policies to align under a long-term vision, as doing so, he said, would reduce confusion and add transparency around this sector.

Bezzina also observed that, despite being in government since 2013, Malta's PL governments have never updated the country's local plans - which were devised in 2006, according to localities' needs back then, and were meant to be updated a decade ago in 2016.

"Planning must be a continuous process, based on studies, consultations, and with a long-term vision in mind," he said.

Both Attard and Bezzina stressed the importance for both sides behind any appeal - the appellant and permit holder - to have fair conditions through these legal changes, i.e., for appeals to be made effective and for developers not to have projects suspended for too long while the state of their permit is being decided.

Until this legal change comes into force, developers do not face any penalties if they proceed with construction works, demolition, excavations, changes of area use, or benefit from any other rights or benefits that may arise from the permit while the Planning Authority's Environment and Planning Review Tribunal (EPRT) or the Court of Appeal is still deciding whether a permit should be retracted or not.

This Bill seeks to change that by inferring an automatic suspension on any given permit once an appeal has been filed against it. It also comes with strict timelines for the EPRT and the Court of Appeal to decide on a certain appeal, as well as additional support to ameliorate technical resources along these processes to make these hearings more efficient.

Minister Attard also mentioned that the Cabinet holds power to potentially revoke a permit's automatic suspension when a permit relates to national "strategic importance and public interest." Bezzina called for the terms and references behind such exceptions to be clarified, so that the general public understands the true reasons behind such decisions once they are made.

Monday's Second Reading marks the beginning of the end of the long tale behind this reform. Before this planning appeals reform garnered cross-party support, public outrage had sparked when the government tabled two bills in Parliament to reform planning laws more holistically in a manner that led environmentalists to refer to the changes as a "developer's wish list" in the summer of 2025. This was met with strong criticism from civil society and eventually fell through following increasing public pressure in October last year, only to evolve and only include this aspect of applying an automatic suspension on permits facing appeal.

Civil society has since come out in favour of the planning appeals reform being discussed in Parliament now.

On Monday, Minister Attard thanked everyone who took part in the preceding talks that led to the Bill presented before the Chamber. He stressed that citizens filing an appeal against a project must feel that their voice is being heard and that the subsequent process is fair, robust, and more credible than it was previously.

He praised that this proposed Bill looks to provide citizens with a more effective remedy against proposed projects they may disagree with.