BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Friday it was referring Malta to the Court of Justice of the European Union for incorrectly applying a derogation regime and authorising the trapping of protected finches for research purposes.
“The Birds Directive requires a general system of protection for wild birds and allows derogations on hunting and trapping only subject to strict conditions”, the Commission said in a statement.
“The issue of finch trapping was already subject to infringement proceedings in the past, leading to a ruling of the Court of Justice in 2018 declaring a similar trapping derogation unlawful.”
(Reporting by Marine Strauss and Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by John Chalmers)
