Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola has pledged to seek avenues through which to take the Central Link road upgrade up with EU institutions, describing the recently approved project as “madness”.

“It seems like our opposition to Muscat’s Central Link road-widening madness has hit a nerve,” Metsola said. “They don’t like people standing up to their destruction of our trees, their war on our air or their siege of our institutions. They don’t like people standing up at all.”

She said she is seeing what can be done on an EU level to stop the destruction of agricultural land in green areas for a Minister’s “vanity project”, a reference to Transport and Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg.

https://www.facebook.com/roberta.metsola/photos/a.423119647805270/2276301495820400/?type=3&theater

“We protect the natural environment we have left or all our children will have left are old photographs for them to look as they waste time in traffic,” she said. “#NotShuttingUp.”

The Central Link project between Attard and Rabat, which was approved by the Planning Authority this week, proposes the uprooting of 549 trees, 272 of which are protected, and the planting of 766 more trees along the route to compensate.

A further 237 trees are set to be replanted and recent evidence suggests that their odds of survival are slim.

However, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat overlooked this latter statement today, arguing that the Central Link project will see a net total of 220 trees added to the area.

Meanwhile, a protest has been scheduled for next Sunday in which people will tie themselves to the trees facing destruction for around three hours.

Cover photo: Left: Deirdre Farrugia (For OUR Trees Facebook group) 

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