Migration in the Euro-Med area

Upon coming across the op-ed feature entitled Small Country, Big Problem in the International Herald Tribune last week penned by Malta's Foreign Minister, Michael Frendo, I immediately realised that such a feature would further raise both Malta's challenge in dealing with this human security issue and also concentrate the strategic thinker's minds on what policy actions need to be introduced to better manage this growing source of insecurity.

Phone calls from colleagues of mine in the sphere of international relations in London, Brussels and Tel Aviv during the course of the past week after having seen the Foreign Minister's exposé in either the IHT, the Frankfurter Allgemeine or Le Figaro, further underlined the fact that the message Malta has been consistently and persistently trying to communicate to the international community of states about the necessity to deal with illegal immigration in the Euro-Med. area in a more concerted manner, was certainly gaining major traction.

Malta's strategic decision to focus on illegal immigration as a number one foreign policy priority in recent years has resulted in this so-called soft security issue becoming a top priority on the international agenda of Europe's main security institutions. In the feature published in leading international newspapers last week, Dr Frendo succeeded in further advancing strategic thinking on this phenomenon by identifying four main themes that need to be taken into consideration when tackling the problem.

First, immediate action is necessary to deal with the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding on Europe's doorstep. While tens of thousands of people are going through harrowing humanitarian experiences in an effort to reach mainland Europe, hundreds are losing their lives in the Mediterranean Sea.

A crisis-management mechanism, therefore, needs to be set up to prevent the further loss of life on the high seas.

Second, the only way to deal with such a trans-national security challenge as illegal immigration is to ensure that all the countries concerned are included in such a process. Malta's emphatic call for African states to join the international debate on illegal immigration at the conference in Morocco earlier this month is the only logical way forward. Unless countries of origin, transit and destination are around the table, no effective international mechanism can be introduced to stem the tide of illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. The EU-African Union conference, scheduled to take place in Tripoli, is thus of utmost importance and should be held as soon as possible.

Third, human trafficking needs to be regarded as a major component in the equation of organised crime. Transportation of illegal immigrants worldwide is a billion dollar annual business and, thus, needs to be tackled as such. As one of the main sea lines of communication, the Mediterranean is a major highway for such trafficking. Joint patrolling of the Mediterranean, west, central and east, is thus a must if criminal organisations' activities are to stand any chance of being seriously curtailed.

Fourth, all short- and medium-term efforts to better manage illegal immigration need to be supplemented by a more long-term strategy that focuses on the north-south socio-economic dimension of this problem. International development assistance needs to be better distributed so that people in developing countries start seeing a future in their own homeland.

By taking full advantage of its membership of different international organisations, especially the "soap box" that EU membership has provided since 2004, Malta has succeeded in focusing international attention on a major security challenge in the Mediterranean. The EU decision to launch joint patrols in the Mediterranean and the more recent plan unveiled by the European Commission to consider dispatching "rapid reaction" teams of border guards, interpreters and medics to help frontline states such as Malta cope with the influx of illegal immigrants, is further evidence of just how much has been achieved in this respect.

The next step in Malta's illegal immigration strategy must now be to ensure that the EU's fledging border control agency, Frontex, lives up to its commitment and sets a date to implement a multilateral mechanism that has all the necessary resources to monitor, manage and channel the flow of illegal migrants in the Euro-Med area. Malta's foreign policy track record to date, when it comes to moving the illegal immigration debate to a higher level, augurs well for further progress to be registered in the near future.

Dr Calleya is an international relations analyst.