Getting tough on immigration

The news report carried in The Times yesterday that Foreign Minister Michael Frendo has promised a tough line in the EU Council of Ministers over immigration is important. We cannot say "about time" because it is a well-known fact that Dr Frendo and several other ministers and MEPs have been putting Malta's case across to their EU partners in no uncertain terms.

We understand Dr Frendo's words to mean that the strong effort that has already been made in the past will be intensified. We agree and hope that Malta will be behind him. The crisis caused by the immigration problem is one kind of situation where a minister of a member state is fully justified in going to the Council with guns blazing.

Minister Frendo's declaration came at a meeting he had with Hungarian Foreign Minister Kinga Goncz in Budapest. For its part, Hungary has shown that it understands Malta's predicament which we read to mean that it will support Malta's case for more support to deal with the problem.

Minister Frendo was reported to have said that when one takes into consideration Malta's small size and population density, the number of illegal immigrants who landed in Malta in the last ten days are equivalent to some 50,000 landing in Spain.

As the EU focuses on containing illegal immigration in the western Mediterranean, not enough is being done in the central part. Moreover organised crime groups which promote this illicit human trade are switching routes, effectively rerouting traffic through Malta and Italy.

More than a hint of indignation was evident in Minister Frendo's statement when he pointed out that he had predicted that this would happen and that he had warned colleagues and the Commission when the decision was taken to focus resources on the western Mediterranean instead of taking a holistic approach across the region.

The EU has also to find a solution to the source of this wave which is in sub-Saharan Africa. What on earth happened to the Spanish proposal that an EU-Africa summit should be convened to discuss the issue and propose actions to resolve it?

EU surveillance patrols are planned to be deployed in the central Mediterranean. Six EU member states have pledged their support to these patrols by supplying ships and aircraft. Their aim is to stop criminal organisations from continuing to ferry immigrants across the sea and turn them back to the point of origin. Libyan co-operation with this effort is essential for its success, though results could still be obtained without it.

Apart from this, Malta receives a substantial amount of aid - though not in sufficient quantities - from the European Refugee Fund. This helps as well but when one considers that the immigration burden could amount to around 1.1 per cent of GNP these flows are clearly insufficient.

Furthermore, funds and patrols are essential in mitigating the problem. But they hardly offer long-term solutions. What is essential - and we are not claiming to be original in repeating this proposal - is for longer-term policies that seek to engage the co-operation of all our neighbours in stemming this inhuman trade, measures to eradicate the root-cause of the immigration flows in sub-Saharan Africa and a proper EU immigration policy.

Dr Frendo's hard stand in Council deserves Malta's support. But it must also be accompanied by a clear statement of what we want the EU to do.

Fortnightly report compiled by the European Movement