Everyone likes a clean environment. Nobody wakes up in the morning wishing for more dust in the air, more sewage in the sea, or another tower crane outside their window. So, on paper, the PN’s new proposal to enshrine the “right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment” into Malta’s Constitution sounds like one of those universally good ideas. Like WiFi. Or Coffee. Or days without traffic.
But here’s the problem: this isn’t policymaking. It’s point-scoring. It’s the legislative equivalent of declaring “let there be clean air” and assuming the job is done. You don’t make Malta cleaner by telling people they have a right to it. You make Malta cleaner by fixing traffic management, planning enforcement, waste collection, and the million tiny dysfunctions that make life on this rock exhausting.
What the PN is proposing is, at best, symbolic. At worst, it risks turning the courts into a sort of national suggestion box where anyone can file a constitutional case because they don’t like their neighbour’s barbecue smoke. Yes, that’s how broad the proposal is. Enshrine this into the Constitution and technically, in theory, you could sue the government every time the air in Marsa smells like diesel. Or if your view in Sliema gets ruined by a new block of flats, because that interferes with your “aesthetic environment.” Or if you live in a village square and feel that the noisy band outside during the village feast constitutes noise pollution.
This is the kind of lazy thinking that has defined Malta’s approach to the environment for decades: slap a noble phrase on paper and pretend we’ve solved the problem. We’ve had “green policies” and “visions” and “strategies” until we’re blue in the face. What we haven’t had is the courage to govern competently, enforce rules, and make the kind of tough decisions that inevitably upset somebody but serve the common good.
Take traffic. Everyone loves to say Malta has too many cars, and sure, we do. But most traffic jams are not the result of sheer car numbers. They’re caused by poor enforcement, sloppy roadworks scheduling, and reckless driving. It’s not an “environmental” problem, it’s an administrative one. Fix those basics and suddenly Malta feels less like a daily endurance test.
Or look at planning. Yes, we need updated planning laws, but the bigger issue is the culture around policymaking. We cling to this idea that “hearing everyone out” somehow equals good policy. It doesn’t. It just means you get a wish-list of competing demands with no vision holding it together. The PN knows this, or at least Alex Borg seems to. He was right when he said the party needs to chart its own course rather than just parroting what NGOs are saying. Consultation is important, but if the people you’re consulting aren’t experts, then you’re still making policy in the dark. And Malta cannot afford more policy made in the dark.
This is why the Opposition’s constitutional gimmick feels so hollow. It doesn’t address any of the underlying dysfunctions that are actually choking Malta – literally and metaphorically. Instead, it hands the hot potato to the courts. But our courts are already a clogged-up mess. What this amendment would do is add another layer of litigation to a system that can’t keep up as it is. It’s a fantasy to think we’ll judicially enforce our way to a cleaner country.
The truth is that Malta’s environment will only improve when politicians close loopholes, enforce standards, and appoint people who are competent enough to run the institutions we already have. That requires political will and technical expertise – not constitutional poetry. If the PN wants to be taken seriously as an alternative government, it has to prove it’s capable of more than grand symbolic gestures.
And here’s where I’ll give Alex Borg some credit. He’s new, he’s said some sensible things, and he seems to understand that the PN needs a distinct vision, not just a reaction to whatever Labour is doing or whatever NGOs are shouting about this week. But if this environmental bill is his party’s idea of bold thinking, then it’s back to the drawing board. It’s not enough to gesture at the environment and expect people to applaud. Malta’s problems are systemic – they’re about governance, competence, and responsibility.
What we need is a coherent framework of standards and regulations, and above all a sense of collective responsibility. Responsibility that starts at the top. Responsibility that says: if a planning loophole exists, we close it. If traffic enforcement is weak, we fix it. If policy is being decided by people with no expertise, we put experts in the room. None of this is glamorous, but all of it is essential if we actually want to live on an island that isn’t suffocating under its own contradictions.
This bill, as it stands, is just more noise in the static. It’s the illusion of progress without the substance. And that’s why, ultimately, it’s not just the PN that needs to do better, it’s the entire political class. Labour is in government and has the tools to start fixing these issues today, but it doesn’t. The PN has the chance to show what an alternative government would look like, but it hasn’t. Both are guilty of the same Maltese disease: confusing talk for action, and words for solutions.
Enshrining the right to a healthy environment in the Constitution is like writing a law that everyone has the right to be happy. It sounds nice. It feels nice. It makes a good headline. But it changes nothing. Happiness – like clean air and quiet streets – doesn’t come from declarations. It comes from the hard, often boring work of making systems function and holding people accountable.
So yes, let’s give the PN credit for caring about the environment. Let’s acknowledge the good intentions. But let’s also be brutally honest: you can’t sue your way to a healthier Malta. You can only govern your way there.