French lobbied Barnier on Delimara, in return for toned-down reaction on Roma expulsion

The French government brokered a tacit agreement with the Maltese government not to raise any principled objections to the deportation of Roma people from France, in return for their intervention with European Commissioner Michel Barnier on the Delimara power station infringement procedures.

MaltaToday is reliably informed that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s lukewarm reaction in September to the French government’s deportation of Roma people, came after a meeting between high-level diplomats on Malta’s own problems with Brussels.

Specifically, Malta’s envoys asked their French counterparts to intervene with Barnier – commissioner for the internal market and services and a former agriculture minister in the Sarkozy government – on his tough line with the government, when he raised serious doubts on legal amendments that favoured Danish firm BWSC’s bid for a diesel turbine previously ruled out by Malta’s emission laws.

The Maltese government agreed on its part to issue a stripped-down reaction to the controversial deportation of Roma people at the end of summer, which the European Commission said was illegal and opened infringement procedures.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi took a cautious stand on the expulsion of the Roma, simply saying the Commission was ‘duty-bound’ to investigate but stopped stopped short of affirming a clear stand of disapproval. “France has accepted this and one hopes this matter is cleared in the next weeks, to see whether EU directives were infringed or not. We await the outcome of those investigations.”

His statement had been criticised only by Alternattiva Demokratika, who deplored the PM’s ‘wait and see’, describing it as “a servile attitude and a lack of dignity and self respect on the part of the Maltese government.”

“The Maltese government should not be silenced by the shouting of big countries, in this case France, but should instead speak out clearly in favour of what is right, according to the rule of law and EU treaties,” AD international affairs spokesperson Arnold Cassola had said.

France has abided by a European Commission deadline at the last minute by submitting information on how it intends to align its national legislation with EU laws on the free movement of people, but the country remains under scrutiny to determine whether its summer crackdown on illegal Roma camps amounted to discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, the Commission said.

Brussels however is still seeking answers from Malta into the last-minute changes to emission laws that gave BWSC a €200 million contract for the construction of a 144-MW diesel-fired turbine for the Delimara power station.

“The change was not necessary to comply with European legislation as the Maltese authorities seemed to indicate [but] to benefit one of the exceptions to the applicability of the Large Combustion Plant Directive,” Michel Barnier told foreign minister Tonio Borg in a stern letter.

The letter of formal notice represents the first stage in the pre-litigation procedure, during which the Commission requests a Member State to submit its observations on an identified problem regarding the application of EU law.

Barnier also said the new emission limits only applied to diesel engines and not to gas power plants, meaning this disadvantaged a bid by Israeli firm Bateman, which was proposing a cheaper, gas technology. “This constituted a clear advantage for the bidders that had presented an offer for a diesel powered plant, as the possibility for a plant to produce a higher level of emissions ahs a clear impact on the costs of such plant.”