Support and pressure

Well done to all those who contributed to the acceptance, at the level of the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, of the draft European Council conclusions which, if endorsed as agreed, at the meeting of heads of state and of government of the EU on October 15 and 16 will crystallise the formal acceptance of the principle of voluntary burden sharing among EU member states. This is a very important step forward although the Commission now needs to create the mechanisms to implement this principle among EU member states.

Equally important is the reference in the text to those EU member states with "specific and disproportionate pressures on their national asylum systems, due in particular to their geographical or demographic situation" - and, in our case, additionally, by reason of our size. The MLP was wrong to immediately dismiss this important development with references to the fact that it does not cover all illegal migrants and that there is no timeframe to its implementation. As the opposition, they can ask for more, but they are wrong not to put their own weight four square behind the government on this issue so that together we can keep up the pressure on the EU to act on all fronts.

Frontex missions, always a risky exercise, remain essential in the central Mediterranean, not least to complement the mission in the western Mediterranean and in the Canaries. Malta's insistence on having Frontex missions in the central Mediterranean was fully justified in order to ensure that the criminal organisations controlling the flow of illegal immigration along the western, central and eastern African routes did not get the message that the Libya/Maltese/Italian route was a "soft" option on which to divert all their activities. While Frontex on its own was, and is, never the full answer to the problem of illegal immigration, lack of Frontex missions in the central Mediterranean would further compound the problem for us in this region.

Fighting illegal immigration is a complex issue.

Many an eyebrow was raised in surprise when, some years back, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, I launched an appeal to the EU to condition development - not humanitarian - assistance to ACP countries to their adherence to their Cotonou article 13 where they undertook to take back illegal immigrants. It was a proposal meant to highlight the urgency and intensity of Malta's (and others) problem and, although not endorsed as proposed, it had an important influence on the debate and article 13 missions with ACP countries have now become regular features of the European Commission's work on illegal immigration.

We still await a clear answer to the Malta proposal, which was laid in front of EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers following the "tuna pen" incident. Malta proposed an agreed system of rotational burden-sharing among all EU states for persons saved from the search and rescue area of a non-EU country which borders with an EU state (say, Libya). The proposal remains shelved, many voices having suddenly gone silent on this matter. All that needs to be done is to follow the conclusion of the Spanish trawler case, when, following our justified refusal of entry of the trawler into Maltese national waters, Spain, Italy, Malta and Andorra achieved a negotiated burden-sharing solution to the situation.

The UNHCR holds an important key to the success of the voluntary burden-sharing scheme which can emerge after the European Council of mid-October. The UNHCR has to accept that EU states can deduct from their yearly UNHCR quota commitment refugees or persons holding humanitarian status accepted from the territories of other EU member, especially in the case of particularly vulnerable EU member countries carrying a disproportionate burden. The UNHCR has to lift its refusal for such deduction to take place, at least for extreme cases such as Malta.

The element of repatriation is also another essential factor. When just under two years ago, as then Minister of Foreign Affairs, on my great insistence, the ministry submitted its Dar voluntary repatriation programme under the EU funded Return programme, I was probably the only one to believe that this could somewhat work. Together with our partners, the Austrian based ICMPD, Med Europe (Italy) and SOS Malta, we were awarded the project, in the midst of great scepticism. It is true that, consciously, not to raise expectations too high, this programme of voluntary repatriation was introduced without any fanfare as far as the media were involved but it is results which count. May this process continue well beyond the closure of this 18-month programme which terminates in January next year.

Addressing illegal immigration is a multi-faceted issue in which Malta needs all the help it can get. This is the time for all political and social forces to rally behind the government to express clear support for the adoption of the burden-sharing principle in the "new European Union pact on migration". Without this expression of solidarity there would be nothing much new about it.

Dr Frendo was Malta's Foreign Minister between 2004 and 2008.