MEIA strongly condemns the government’s proposed changes to Malta’s planning laws which seek to strip away public rights and weaken safeguards against unchecked development. We join Din l-Art Ħelwa, Moviment Graffitti, and other civil society voices in calling for these bills to be immediately withdrawn.

Introduced without public consultation, these proposals undermine democratic participation, professional integrity and the public’s right to shape the built and natural environment. They appear to be designed not to strengthen planning but to undermine recent legal victories that reinforced the rule of law in the planning process.

If enacted, they would grant the Planning Board broad discretion to override national policies without clear criteria or accountability, while severely restricting public appeals and weakening judicial oversight by limiting courts to procedural reviews and removing their power to directly revoke permits that breach the rule of law.

While the proposal includes measures such as steeper fines for illegal development and a pathway to address long-standing enforcement backlogs, these cannot justify a broader framework that weakens oversight and rewards non-compliance. Fines alone continue to prove ineffective against developers whose budgets have no bounds, turning penalties into just another cost of doing business. What may appear as pragmatic fixes risk institutionalising illegality and eroding the very principles planning is meant to uphold.

Amid growing public fatigue with the consequences of unregulated development, planning laws should be moving toward greater transparency, accountability and protection of public wellbeing. Instead, this reform does the opposite. As a representative of the cultural and creative sectors, MEIA affirms that planning is not a system of technical loopholes for private gain, but an equitable civic tool to protect both people and place.

We call on the government to withdraw these regressive measures, which erode public trust and dismantle vital safeguards for communities, the environment and cultural heritage, and urge a serious commitment to rebuilding a planning system that serves the long-term interests of society and future generations.