MEP insists EU should move faster on immigration

Addressing a conference organised by the European People's Party in Granada, Spain, on the "European Union facing the Challenge of Immigration", Simon Busuttil, MEP, insisted that the EU should move faster to rise to public expectations in combatting illegal immigration. This is a summary of Dr Busuttil's presentation.

One of the factors that militates against Malta in its daunting challenge of dealing with the influx of immigrants, stems from a simple territorial reality. Malta does not have any hinterland where immigrants can move on and be absorbed.

Immigrants arriving in Lampedusa are quickly transferred to mainland Italy and those arriving in the Canaries are sent here to mainland Spain.

But those arriving in Malta are stuck there.

They are stuck because on the one hand, those who do not qualify for protection cannot easily be sent back and on the other, regardless of their status, none of the immigrants can automatically move on to mainland Europe since under the Dublin Convention, Malta is responsible for receiving their asylum applications.

Many have been repatriated to their country of origin, albeit with great difficulty. Resettlement helps too - this week we heard how the US will be taking a group of 200 - but it remains voluntary.

As to the rest, they are trapped and this leads to a sense of desperation that prevails in some of the reception centres.

Regrettably, EU co-operation on immigration has not yet evolved sufficiently to help us untie this knot.

Repatriation could be helped if Article 13 of the Cotonou Agreement had to be properly enforced. This article enables receiving countries to send back illegal immigrants who do not qualify for asylum.

But this article is being ignored by African countries of origin that are not at all keen to take back immigrants who are illegally present in the EU territory. And, so far, this provision has also been overlooked by the European Union itself which has not done much to enforce it. So more effort should be done so that countries of origin take back immigrants who do not qualify for asylum and who have nevertheless taken the route of illegal passage.

The legal basis is there - it is Article 13 of the Contonou Agreement.

Dublin II and burden-sharing

The other difficulty in Malta's specific case is the provision in Dublin II, which obliges countries of the first point of entry to be legally responsible for dealing with asylum requests. This provision appears fair at face value but, in practice, it creates a disproportionate burden on member states at the external borders of the EU, which are the first points of entry into the Union territory. Apart from shouldering the task of policing the external borders of the Union, these member states are also burdened with the ensuing responsibility of admitting asylum seekers.

Specifically, for a country like Malta, with the constraints that I have just outlined, this burden has now become intolerable.

The European Commission is shortly expected to publish a communication on the technical aspects of Dublin II, and in June it will publish a Green Paper on the more political aspects and make concrete proposals by the first half of 2008. However, I sense little political will to review Dublin in a way that allows meaningful burden-sharing among all member states. The Commission apparently considers this assessment as only the first step towards the second phase of the European common asylum system, due by no sooner than 2010. This timing does not help countries that are already facing severe pressures.

EU measures to stem illegal immigration

Let me now turn to a number of measures that have been adopted at EU level over the past year to help combat illegal immigration. Towards the end of last year, the European Commission issued a Communication on "Reinforcing the management of the EU's Southern Martime Borders". Some of these measures constitute a first attempt at getting EU countries to act together on illegal immigration.

Firstly, four new funds are being established in the area of immigration - the European External Borders Fund, the European Refugees Fund, the European Integration Fund and the European Return Fund. These funds will finally give the European Union financial resources to support its fledgling immigration policy. However, January 2007 has come and gone and these funds have still not entered into operation. The Return Fund will not even be available until next year at the earliest. Putting these funds into operation is urgent.

Secondly, a so-called "emergency clause" has been inserted in these funds to ensure that financial assistance can be disbursed quickly in cases of emergency, thereby avoiding unnecessary bureaucratic delays in cases of urgency.

Thirdly, the European Agency for the management of external borders, Frontex, has had its budget almost doubled - to some €35 million this year - to help it deliver on its tasks. This was the result of amendments moved by my group in the European Parliament, the EPP-ED group, in the Budgets Committee.

Fourthly, for this first time ever, last year, Frontex embarked upon so-called sea border patrols off the Canary Islands as well as in the central Mediterranean area between Malta and Libya.

The results of the first operations last year were not impressive. However, the patrols off the Canary Islands which resumed this year appear to be making a difference. In fact, in the first three months of this year, immigration flow towards the Canaries was cut down by half. It is not entirely clear whether this was solely thanks to the Frontex patrols. They probably helped. In any case numbers have gone down compared to last year. And that can only be welcome news.

Yet, although the Frontex sea border patrol missions are an important step forward, they are still facing difficulties.

For instance, last year few member states came forward to assist Frontex with the necessary technical equipment and capabilities - notably, boats, planes and helicopters - to be able to embark upon these patrols in a meaningful manner. But according to Commissioner Franco Frattini, the situation this year will improve because many member states have now responded positively to his call for technical support.

Libya

Difficulties become even more complicated if the European Union does not secure the co-operation of countries from which the immigrants have set sail.

In the Mediterranean, Libya's refusal to participate in Frontex missions had an obvious impact on the effectiveness of Frontex's efforts. Libya has also appears to have dismissed an EU request for a readmission agreement.

Initially, Libya's disengagement led to an effective blocking of the Frontex mission. But since its participation cannot be a pre-condition for a Frontex mission, the Mediterranean mission finally proceeded, albeit with limited results.

Late last year, Libya seemed to become more amenable to co-operation and even hosted an international conference on immigration in Tripoli.

But clearly, more needs to be done to bring Libya on board and this is crucial to the success of the Frontex missions in the Mediterranean. To do so, the European Union needs to understand that being a transit country rather than a country of origin, Libya has its own pressures - with thousands of immigrants entering Libyan territory from the desert borders in the South. This means that if we want Libya to co-operate with us we must first understand its situation and its difficulties especially emerging from its Southern borders.

Finally, last month, the European Parliament voted on a new law which will provide, for the first time, for the deployment of EU Rapid Border Intervention Teams, consisting of border guards from different member states, to assist EU countries facing an exceptionally grave situation with the influx of immigration. This is a new solidarity instrument which makes solidarity on immigration, for the first time, compulsory rather than optional. It is another small, yet positive, step forward.

I listed some of the concrete measures that the European Union has taken to help us face the challenge of illegal immigration. The effectiveness of these measures is not yet altogether clear and I hope that they will prove their worth as the immigration season resumes in the coming weeks.

I am cautiously optimistic that some results can be achieved. But I do believe that more can be done. On immigration, Europe is still far off from living up to public expectations. And I want it to move faster, much faster.