In its reaction to the decision by EU ministers regarding the Directive on Public Transport, Moviment Graffitti urged Malta's authorities, political parties, Members of the European Parliament and civil society to put pressure within the EU so that Malta can keep subsidizing public transport.
Moviment Graffitti insisted that public transport is a basic social service which should be accessible to everyone. Public transport is also important to help reduce pollution, traffic gridlock and the construction of roads on virgin land.
Moviment Graffitti said
"Through the elimination of subsidies, several routes which are not profitable may be removed. As things stand various areas in Malta are already lacking a decent service. The removal or reduction of public transport in further routes will be another blow to any hopes of increasing patronage of this service, which has been in decline over the past years. Various reports on Malta's environment and transport insist on the need to improve public transport to help confront the environmental problems Malta is facing due to the massive amount of cars and roads and the problems related to traffic. A removal of subsidies is definitely not a step in the right direction. To the contrary, it risks moving Malta further away from sustainable development".
"The government should be concerned with the efficiency of the service, which, in various respects, leaves much to be desired. The introduction of ticket machines was a failure as it offered no incentives to encourage people to use buses. The Government's priority should be to make public transport efficient and accessible", added Moviment Graffitti.
Moviment Graffitti believes that radical changes are needed regarding public transport to encourage people to use it more frequently. But Moviment Graffitti warns that the changes should not result in redundancies, less buses or reduction of routes and times. We therefore urge Malta's authorities, political parties, Members of the European Parliament and civil society to put pressure within the EU so that Malta can keep subsidizing public transport.
"We hope that the European Parliament will reverse the decision taken by the EU Ministers" said David Pisani, Graffitti's spokesperson on workers' rights.