MEPs to seek changes to migration rules

The European Parliament will call on the Council of Ministers to amend the Dublin II rule to enable all EU countries to share the burden of illegal migration, members of the Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee said yesterday.

In practice this would mean that asylum seekers who land in Malta would be able to move on to Europe and have their application screened there, which is not possible under current regulations.

The MEPs were speaking during a news conference on the detention centres in Malta following a recent visit by committee members.

On Monday, Parliament debated a Commission statement on the detention centres in Malta that were highly criticised by the committee members. Broad support emerged across party lines for the Dublin regulation to be amended.

MEP Giusto Catania, rapporteur of the Malta visit, said it was a priority to turn immigration into a community subject, harmonising entry into Europe.

He said there should at least be an exception to the Dublin regulation so that immigrants reaching Malta would be able to have their case dealt with elsewhere in Europe.

MEP Stefano Zappalà, vice president of the committee, agreed, saying the Dublin rule needed to be looked into. Malta required quite different assistance from the €125,000 it was being given.

The European People's Party, he said, would present a motion urging the Home Affairs Ministers Council to enter into commitments of a different nature.

It will also propose that an extraordinary council meeting should be held in Malta to discuss what concrete action should be taken in the near future.

"We have to overcome this problem... The position of the Maltese government is unsustainable as is the position of people in the centres... The Maltese are doing everything they can to be fair," he said.

Asked what measures could be taken to help Malta until the Dublin regulation is amended, Mr Zappalà said the Commission would be well advised to suspend all resources being debated and send all that money to Malta.

Non-governmental organisations should, instead of just talking about the problem, help out in detention centres.

He added that it would not be in the slightest bit difficult for EU countries to take their share of immigrants from Malta. And inquiries into whether or not they should be granted refugee status could still take place in other countries. Immediate support was required from European countries.

Mr Zappalà said that, relatively speaking, the arrival of one immigrant in Malta was equivalent to 205 in Germany.

MEP Martine Roure said the committee was not trying to condemn anybody or point fingers. Its intention was to help and that was why it had gone to Malta.

Mr Catania said that what the delegation saw in Malta was unacceptable both legally and humanely. Conditions were disgraceful, the centres were degrading and not fit for human habitation. In one centre, a woman who was four months pregnant was living in unbearable sanitary conditions. "This is unacceptable for a civilised country and for Europe," he said.

Asylum seekers, he added, could not spend eight or nine months waiting for their request to be dealt with or 18 months in detention. Moreover, the reasons for rejecting asylum requests were incorrect. He believed that administrative detention, even for one day, was legally wrong. One should not go to prison for an administrative offence so human rights were already being infringed through detention.

MEP Patrick Gaubert said the committee left Malta with a horrible impression of the situation: "We saw some very unhappy men and women in Malta."

He pointed out, however, that the authorities had opened all doors to the delegation that was free to go wherever it wanted to, which had not been the case in Italy.

He said that two months in detention should be the absolute maximum.

This report was compiled with the cooperation of the Malta office at the European Parliament.