Abela's claim combines a narrow technical fact (ERA did conduct a screening assessment under the EIA Directive) with a headline framing ('proper environmental studies were done, contrary to Momentum's exemption accusation') that implies substantive environmental scrutiny took place. The two are not the same. The screening is a procedural step under EU Directive 2011/92/EU to decide whether a full Environmental Impact Assessment is required. ERA decided no full EIA was needed. Momentum's literal accusation — that the project was exempted from full environmental scrutiny — is therefore correct, and the 'contrary to' framing reverses what the record shows. The studies a coastal-infrastructure project of this profile would normally undergo (social impact, traffic, alternatives, cumulative impact) were not commissioned. Tested against EU Directive 2011/92/EU, ERA's published screening decision, ERA's decision register 2016-2024, and Momentum's FOI complaints.

The screening is not a study — it is a decision not to require one

Under the EU EIA Directive (transposed into Maltese law by the Development Planning Act, Cap. 552), ERA is the competent authority for screening Annex II projects — the category that includes coastal-infrastructure works like the Marsaskala ferry landing. The screening procedure is administrative: ERA applies Annex III selection criteria (project characteristics, location sensitivity, type of impact) to the developer's submission and issues a reasoned decision on whether full Environmental Impact Assessment is required.

For Marsaskala, ERA conducted the screening, applied Annex III criteria, and decided that no full EIA was required. That is the documented outcome.

What that means: the project was indeed exempted from the substantive environmental-scrutiny process the EIA Directive provides for. Momentum's accusation captures this accurately. Abela's 'contrary to Momentum's accusation' framing reverses the record by treating the screening procedure as the studies — but the screening is precisely the gatekeeping step that determines whether the studies happen, and in this case it determined that they would not.

The substantive studies that were not commissioned

Beyond the statutory EIA process, infrastructure projects of comparable profile typically commission additional studies — even if not legally compelled — to inform decision-making and demonstrate due diligence. For the Marsaskala ferry landing, the documented absences include:

• Social impact assessment — how does the ferry landing affect Marsaskala residents, traffic patterns, the village's character and access to the bay?
• Traffic study — what is the expected ferry-related traffic volume and route impact, particularly during peak summer use?
• Alternatives analysis — what other site options were considered, and on what comparison basis was Marsaskala selected?
• Cumulative-impact assessment — the synergies between marine, terrestrial, social, transport and heritage impacts that a full EIA would have captured.

None of these are legally compelled when a project is screened out. But none require legal compulsion either — they are studies the government could have commissioned voluntarily on a project of this profile. They were not. Holding up the screening assessment as proof that 'proper studies were done' relies on a definition of 'proper' that the public would not normally accept for a coastal-infrastructure project sitting on a sensitive bay.

System-level pattern — ERA's declining-EIA trajectory

Marsaskala does not sit in isolation. The system-level pattern at ERA shows the full-EIA request rate has fallen sharply across the PL legislature:

Marsaskala is part of a documented pattern, not an outlier. The discretion the EIA Directive grants competent authorities is increasingly being used to screen Category II projects out of full EIA. The pattern itself is on the ERA decision register; what is contested is whether the trend reflects fewer impactful projects, looser Annex III application, or developer-side salami-slicing strategy.

The salami-slicing critique

ERA can only screen the application that is in front of it. Critics including Momentum and other observers have argued that the Infrastructure Malta application pattern shows salami-slicing — splitting what is in effect a single coherent development into smaller, separable applications that each fall below the threshold that would trigger mandatory EIA. The salami-slicing critique is structural rather than procedural: it is not a complaint about ERA's discretion but about the developer's submission strategy. The outcome for the public, however, is the same: full EIA never gets triggered for what is functionally a single project.

This is a critique of the developer-side strategy that produces the screened-out outcome, not of ERA. But it is precisely the kind of upstream problem that 'proper studies were done' framing papers over.

The transparency layer — FOI complaints

On top of the absent voluntary studies, Momentum has filed repeated FOI requests for the underlying assessment documentation supporting ERA's screening decision and Infrastructure Malta's planning record. Some of those requests have been met with non-disclosure or delayed response, with Momentum escalating unresolved requests to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner. Even the screening-level documentation that should be publicly accessible under Maltese FOI law has not been fully released.

Why this is Misleading, not just lacking context

The Spunt verdict scale distinguishes adjacent failure modes. True-but-lacks-context applies when a claim is accurate but missing material context. Misleading applies when individually-true components are combined in a way that implies something the data doesn't support. This claim sits in the second bucket.

• The narrow component is true. ERA did conduct a screening assessment under the Directive. The legally-mandated procedural step did happen.
• The headline framing is contradicted by the record. 'Proper environmental studies were done, contrary to Momentum's exemption accusation' reads as a denial that the project was exempted from substantive scrutiny. The project was exempted from substantive scrutiny — that is what 'no full EIA required' means in practice. Momentum's accusation is therefore literally accurate, and the 'contrary to' construction reverses it.
• A clean True version was available. Saying 'ERA conducted the legally-mandated screening assessment and decided a full EIA was not required' would have been factually correct and not generated the wrong impression. Choosing the 'proper studies were done' framing instead is what shifts this from defensible-claim to Misleading.

So is the claim accurate?

Not as stated. The screening assessment ERA conducted is a procedural step under the EIA Directive, not a substantive study of environmental impact — and that screening decided that no full EIA was required, exempting the project from the substantive-scrutiny process. Momentum's exemption accusation is therefore literally correct. The substantive studies a project of this profile would normally undergo (social impact, traffic, alternatives, cumulative impact) were not commissioned. Abela's framing combines a true narrow procedural step ('ERA screened the project') with a headline that implies substantive scrutiny ('proper studies were done, contrary to Momentum') — and the data does not support the headline reading.

Verdict: Misleading.