Editorial

Malta's migrant problem is not going to go away anytime soon. The first incidents of the season have seen the island at the southern periphery of the European Union surely getting the short end of the stick with the daily tragedy of the individuals who risk their lives to make the crossing being lumped on our doorstep. This is one occasion where the strategic location of the islands is not to our advantage, putting us on the front line of a humanitarian crisis that is not of our doing.

Writing in The Times yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, who is responsible for the upkeep of these many hundreds of illegal immigrants who arrive on our shores, asks whether the spirit of the EU's burden sharing is really burden shifting onto tiny Malta. It is in situations like this that it is important to look at the big picture and to continue to drive home the arguments that both Foreign Minister Michael Frendo and Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi (apart from Dr Borg) have driven and must continue to drive home with their EU counterparts.

The larger issue is that most of these immigrants do not want to come to Malta. Malta's disproportionately large search and rescue (SAR) zone - even compared to our land area - cannot be patrolled adequately with the islands' limited resources and this is where the burden needs to be shared. Each immigrant who steps on our shores is being cared for from the limited tax revenue of a population of 400,000 - the size of a small European town. The very limited (human and monetary) resources of the Armed Forces of Malta and the Police are being sapped in keeping these immigrants in restricted areas until their situation can be established.

Looking further afield, it is important to consider, perhaps, the case of removing the incentive of human traffickers to continue to ship these people over - at a reputed cost of $2,000 per person (which must be a huge sum, considering where they come from) - through the regularisation of immigration into Europe. Philippe Legrain argues the point in the other article on this page, and it is a point that may have to be taken on board.

Legrain makes two telling points: Europe has an aging population (and so does Malta); and immigrants foster growth in their adoptive countries through the generation of increased demand, the payment of taxes and the filling of certain jobs no-one else wants to do. We already have situations in Malta where labour is being imported from both Africa and Asia to fill some of these positions but, if the position of the immigrants is regulated and their rights are safeguarded, Europe as a whole will benefit.

This is certainly a time for us to stand firm. As was rightly pointed out in our correspondence columns, Malta should not be picked on because of its size. We are now an EU member country, sitting at the table with 26 other EU member countries, and whatever the media in other EU countries state, we have to stand firm in the resolve to act correctly.

We expect Frontex to play its role but we also look towards our southern neighbour Libya in the expectation that it too should play its part. We are confident that they are fully aware of the situation, from which they are also affected and for which they are certainly also not the cause. The immigrants who are leaving from the southern shores of the Mediterranean are first having to find jobs to fund their hazardous journey but, make no mistake, many of those who make the crossing are not the unfortunates we make them out to be.

They have mobile phones, they have a certain disposable income and they are now organised in what they have to say and do. We must not allow our islands to be put in a negative light with our EU neighbours because we are being instrumentalised.

This is where the right messages need to go out that Malta is more than playing its part.