S.L. 549.61 Art. 2Objectives.

(1) The objective of these regulations is to provide for a high level of protection of the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes with a view to promoting sustainable development, by ensuring that, in accordance with these regulations, a strategic environmental assessment is carried out of certain plans and programmes which are likely to have significant effects on the environment.

(2) These regulations transpose the provisions of Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment.

(3) These regulations shall have effect without prejudice to the provisions of the Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context done in Kiev on the twenty-first day of May 2003 ("the Kiev Protocol") which forms part of the laws of Malta, and which is reproduced in Schedule III.

(4) The text of the said Kiev Protocol is being published in the English Language only, in the English text of these regulations.