PN: ERA meeting refusal puts Board in breach of Seveso Directive

The Nationalist Party has voiced its disappointment at being refused a meeting with the Environment and Resources Agency (ERA) board to discuss permits being requested for the LNG Floating Storage Unit that is to be kept in Marsaxlokk bay.

In a letter to ERA chairman Victor Axaik, PN president Ann Fenech urged the authority to reconsider its position, adding that the decision not to accept the invitation is “totally unacceptable”.

“In the event that the ERA maintains its position in denying our request for a meeting…the Board would be in breach of the Seveso 111 Directive which obliges authorities to embark on effective consultation,” she said in her letter.

Axiak had previously informed the PN that its request for a meeting would not be accepted and that the board had agreed to have the PN discuss its concerns at the next public meeting.

Fenech said that she was asking the authority to reconsider in light of the fact that the application submitted is “no run of the mill application” and the first of its kind in Malta. Moreover, she said that once the permits have been granted, it will be the first known instance “anywhere in the civilised world” of an FSU being positioned in a port which is not an all-weather port. This, she said, goes against all existing guidelines.

In addition to this she said that the meeting was being requested because Electrogas representatives gave “the most unsatisfactory answers” at the last public consultation meeting held.

“[Electrogas were] even caught lying outright about a fundamental issue – the certification of the jetty and the storm moorings,” she said.

Fenech argued that the meeting is being requested to highlight serious and valid safety issues, and should therefore not be dismissed.

“How can we highlight these serious safety concerns if we are instead to discuss these at the same meeting during which the Board is going to take its decision,” she said.

She also noted the fact that public consultation meetings make it more challenging to properly highlight and explain certain concerns because of the presence of the “usual rent a crowd of persons” who’s presence at the meetings is mainly for disruption.