Updated: Muscat urges PM not to sign Immigration Pact

(Adds PN statement)

Labour leader Joseph Muscat this morning urged the Prime Minister not to sign the EU Immigration Pact, agreed last week.

The pact is due to be signed at the forthcoming meeting of EU heads of government.

Dr Muscat said Malta should not sign the Pact because two aspects were not in Malta’s interest – Member states have a choice of whether or not to help Malta in the immigration problem, and burden-sharing, when it took place, would only be applied to recognised refugees, who formed only a small percentage of the migrants who arrived inMalta.

The Labour Party would back Dr Gonzi if he decided not to add his signature to the pact, Dr Muscat said. But Dr Gonzi should expect no favours from the MLP if he still went ahead.

The Labour leader also announced that the MLP would shortly launch a door-to-door recruitment drive. It was unacceptable, he said, that such a great party only had 19,000 members.

The Labour leader reiterated his gratitude to Joseph Cuschieri, who will be relinquishing his parliamentary seat for him tomorrow, saying he would be in the House to listen to his farewell speech.

Dr Muscat said the MLP was united like never before, and this was a sound platform for it to do its work.

The Nationalist Party in a reaction to Dr Muscat's comments on immigration, said it was renewing its appeal to the Labour leader to come up with concrete proposals on the issues. It said Dr Muscat should not be partisan on a problem such as this and not try to "fan racial sentiments".

The PN said this was the first time that burden-sharing had found itself in an EU document. The Immigration Pact would have the backing of all 27 member states. Through the pact EU member states would be able to take persons who would have landed in Malta.

The PN said that Malta had held firm in its insistence that burden-sharing be included in the document, which was why its acceptance was to be welcomed.

The PN noted that when Dr Muscat was yesterday asked for concrete proposals on immigration, his reply was: "You will see how we will work when we are in government."

The PN said the people expected propoer proposals not playing with the people's sentiments.