Editorial: The cynicism behind Project Green

The Environment Minister has launched Project Green, the agency entrusted with a €700 million fund to provide new open spaces in our localities.

This forms part of the Labour Party’s electoral manifesto and was described as a shift from “infrastructure to the environment” in President George Vella’s speech on the opening of Parliament last May.

That speech, traditionally written by the government, delivers a sort of false equivalence: the government dedicates €700 million for the construction of open spaces but a substantial amount of this cache will be spent on infrastructure, over and above the €500 million allocated by the government for the continuation of the roadbuilding spree seen in the last years. The €200 million difference between the two budgets does not really imply a change in direction.

There are quite a few reasons why Project Green was met with widespread cynicism.

First of all, this is essentially another agency led by yet another trusted member of a minister’s entourage, backed by the now familiar calls for interest from the private sector. This is a formula that has been used and abused since the days of Joseph Muscat, when authorities were gradually turned...