EU energy ministers are pushing to allow public funds to help build a gas pipeline to a power station in Malta co-owned by a businessman who is awaiting trial for the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
On Tuesday, officials and MEPs will begin deciding new rules aimed at phasing out EU subsidies for fossil fuel projects.
However, on Friday EU ambassadors confirmed that Malta and Cyprus had secured exemptions for pipelines that would connect them to European gas networks.
In practice, that means the €400m (£340m) Melita pipeline project, designed to transport gas from Gela in Sicily to Delimara in Malta, could be built using EU funds.
Cyprus also stands to benefit from an exemption to the phaseout of EU support for fossil fuel
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