Delimara | MT stands by its story as Maltese officials engaged French diplomats to lobby EU Commissioner Michel Barnier

MaltaToday has stood by its story published yesterday,  that revealed how 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.

This kind of lobbying has been taking place on other issues, including on matters related to derogations from EU law.

Malta’s Permanent Representation has been involved with other diplomats on various issues, as has been the case over the bird hunting and trapping laws, and tuna industry.

Over the last years, the Permanent Representation has been used by the Maltese government to lobby on a number of issues, but the Barnier letter has been described as “by far the most serious crisis” facing the Maltese government, MaltaToday is informed.

Traditionally, governments would use the good services of their nominee for EU Commissioner, but the total breakdown in communications between the Permanent Representative Richard Cachia Caruana and Commissioner John Dalli, has hampered this line of communication totally.

Yesterday, MaltaToday revealed how 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.”

Late yesterday, the finance ministry stepped in to claim that the MaltaToday report, was a "total fabrication".

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was in Athens attending a climate change conference.

It was Tonio Fenech's spokesperson who emailed MaltaToday with a government position, at 7:30pm, with a brief denial of the story, a full 12 hours after MaltaToday's story broke.

This newspaper has reaffirmed that diplomats from both the French and Maltese side discussed in September how a watered down reaction to the Roma deportation, could encourage the French to lobby with former minister Michel Barnier to soften his stance on infringement procedures against Malta.