Moviment Graffitti activists have started dismantling their campsite in front of the Planning Authority after five straight days of protesting but insisted that they will not be satisfied until they see results from the government.
The activist group recently set up camp outside the Planning Authority, and also marched to the Infrastructure Ministry where they were met by Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg and Environment Minister Jose Herrera. They are demanding the immediate review of the controversial fuel stations policy.
In a Facebook post, the group said the protest was coming to an end, convinced that "pressure is working."
"These five days of direct action have been a truly encouraging experience for us since we have seen so many people expressing, in different ways, their outrage at the PA's failure to change the fuel stations policy and at the authorities' approach to our environment more generally. Whilst the revision of this policy is long overdue, we are also satisfied that public pressure has forced the authorities to give a deadline – this month - for the publication of the revised policy," the group said.
The activist group also launched a "pompi timer" – www.pompitimer.org - an online timer counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds from the Environment Minister's promise on 25 January 2018 to change this policy.
"Should the authorities fail to publish the revised policy this month, or if the revised policy still allows ODZ fuel stations, Moviment Graffitti is ready to carry out further direct actions," the activists said.
The Malta Independent visited the campsite yesterday morning, before the decision to end the protest was taken. Activists told this newspaper that public support had grown, but when it came to the government this was "debatable."
"I'm sure they know how determined we are to keep on fighting for this issue, but at the same time, until we see results, we are not going to be satisfied in any way," activist Julian Delia said.
During their impromptu meeting with the aforementioned ministers, it was announced that the conclusions of the review of the policy will be published in April.
In April 2018, Environment Minister Jose Herrera published the recommendations made by the ERA which, among other things, reduced the size of acceptable applications by a third and modified the distance between allowable station applications. The ERA had proposed that fuel stations should be at least 1.5 kilometres apart. The current distance limit is 500 metres. It is also proposing, among other things, that the footprint be reduced from the current 3,000 square metres to 2,000.
In June 2018, the Planning Authority then began its own review process, however, this has either not yet concluded or has just not been published yet. Applications for fuel stations have continued to be processed by the PA since last January, and this situation had led to a few protests by environmental activists.
What's next?
Asked what the next steps are, the activists said that, after this particular protest, there are a lot of other issues that need to be discussed.
"It is no secret that Moviment Graffiti has had to, many times, protest against something related to the Planning Authority, so really our next move is to keep on pressing and pressuring until we get what we feel is what the country needs. It's not something that we want, it is not being done just for us, but for the entire country as a whole," one activist said.
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