Greens to push for moratorium on deep sea oil drilling to European Commission

Alternattiva Demokratika’s chairperson Michael Briguglio and EU affairs spokesperson Arnold Cassola will this week travel to the European Green Party’s congress, to push for a motion that suspends deep sea oil drilling to be presented to the European Commission.

The oil company BP, whose involvement in the Gulf of Mexico disaster produced one of the year’s gravest of environmental crises, will be drilling south of Malta, after signing a deal with Libya.

The European Greens, if they approve AD’s motion, will call on the European Commission to introduce a moratorium on all deep sea exploration and exploitation including oil drilling in EU waters until such standards have been secured across the EU.

The motion will also ask Brussels to review its capacity for immediate response to accidents such as the Gulf spill, and to develop a European action plan in cooperation with Member States.

Additionally, the motion demands that full liability will rest with the polluter over any damage caused by oil drilling to terrestrial and marine environments.

The AD motion states that despite the magnitude of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, BP has “brazenly” continued with its policy of ‘business as usual’, signing a deal with Libya for offshore drilling, just a few hundred kilometres from the EU countries of Malta and Italy.

“It is shameful that the Maltese government takes the usual ‘wait and see’ approach when it comes to deciding on issues which are of vital importance to the Maltese in particular and the people of the Mediterranean in general,” Arnold Cassola, AD’s spokesperson on EU and international affairs, said.

“The government’s servile attitude, on oil drilling and nuclear technology by maverick leaders like Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi, is simply appalling. The Labour opposition, led by the contradictory ‘moderate-progressive’ Joseph Muscat, is also continuously silent on these vital issues, in order to safeguard its decades old ties, in particular with Libya,” Cassola said.

AD chairperson Michael Briguglio said that Malta’s dependence on its sea water, from where it gets practically half of its drinking water from the Mediterranean, meant it was only an “irresponsible” Maltese government and Labour Opposition “who can continue ‘waiting and seeing’. What will Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat be waiting for if ever an oil spill were to occur in our drinking water reservoir, the Mediterranean?”