No EU directives in industrial policy chapter
by a staff reporter
The Malta-EU Information Centre has issued a statement - the second one in a week, to clarify a number of points made in a speech by Labour leader Alfred Sant. Dr Sant said last weekend that among the first seven chapters where EU negotiations have been closed, Malta has agreed to introduce between 250 and 400 EU directives in the industry sector. He also said that information should be made available on these laws which will be introduced following this agreement.
The Malta-EU Information Centre would like to clarify that, in fact, under the industrial policy chapter where negotiations have been closed, no such agreement has been reached because there are no EU laws to be applied in this chapter.
Under the industrial policy chapter, the EU has no laws, directives or regulations but merely a set of guiding principles on which EU member States should base their industrial policy. These principles emphasise the importance of industrial competitiveness. In this chapter, all that has been agreed is that Malta agrees to and endorses these principles. The same applies to the chapter on small- and medium-sized undertakings. The directives which were referred to by Dr Sant, are not part of this chapter but fall under another chapter, free movement of goods (free trade). Negotiations on free movement of goods have not yet been opened and therefore no agreement could possibly have been reached on directives in this chapter.
Among others, Dr Sant mentioned directives on plastics, milk, honey and mineral water. It must be clarified that in the case of plastics, the EU directives have already been applied in Malta since 1996 (Legal Notice 4 of 1996) whereas in the case of honey, EU standards have been in place since last year (Legal Notice 78 of 1999).
Equally, Maltese mineral water products already comply with the relative EU directive on water for human consumption (Directive 80/778/EEC) and this is indicated on their label. The only directive that applies to milk under this chapter relates to evaporated and condensed milks which are not produced in Malta.
Finally, it must also be said that information on the directives to which reference has been made is already available from the Malta-EU Information Centre and several local companies have been making use of the information
services offered by the centre.
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