Parliament to debate MEPA demerger next week, despite Opposition plea

Parliament will continue debating a proposed demerger of MEPA into two separate planning and environment arms next week, as the government rejected a last-minute plea by the Opposition to postpone it.

A vote on all three Bills that encompass the demerger will take place on Monday 20 July.

During a House Business Committee meeting, PN deputy leader Mario de Marco repeated his plea to the government to postpone the debate until the conclusion of a public consultation with civil society. He cited a similar call made by Front Harsien ODZ earlier today.

“The government spent 30 weeks drafting the Bill, and I don’t see why they cannot wait four more weeks until the end of a public consultation session,” De Marco said.

His argument was that debates in the House should reflect the opinion of civil society and that NGOs weren’t given enough time to analyze the three Bills that encompass the MEPA demerger and that were only published in the Government Gazette last Friday.

“I was elected as an MP to represent civil society and I want to listen to what civil society has to say about the Bills before debating it in Parliament,” De Marco said.

Deputy Prime Minister Louis Grech retorted that the debate on the Bills already commenced earlier this week and that postponing it halfway through will “send out a bad message”.

 “The Opposition’s argument that they need to hear civil society’s views before debating isn’t credible,” he said. “MPs will be able to discuss civil society’s recommendations at committee stage and alter the Bills accordingly. The Opposition don’t have a monopoly on representing the public. The government also represents the people’s aspiration and concerns, and by quite a clear majority.”

De Marco retorted that the third reading involves the nitty-gritty drafting of a law, something that MPs can hardly ask civil society for their opinions on. 

“I don’t think that the public consultation is limited to the drafting of a law,” he said, questioning whether the government doesn’t care about civil society’s opinion on the principle of the law.

He asked what the government’s position will be if civil society comes out strongly against the demerger, which Grech brushed it off as a “hypothetical question”.

Labour Whip Godfrey Farrugia argued that the principle of the law hasn’t changed since the vast majority of eNGOs agreed with it prior to the 2013 general election.

“The fundamental principle of the demerger is that it will place the environment into a separate authority from planning, hence giving it a stronger voice.”