Immigration: A common front is everyone's responsibility

The recent partisan and demagogic foray of Labour leader Joseph Muscat in the immigration issue was extremely disappointing. Indeed, it betrays a lust for votes so far away from a general election and it differs from his predecessor`s wise stance of avoiding splitting a united bipartisan front on the matter. Indeed, immigration for Dr Muscat has become just another political football to kick around.

This is indeed sad for Dr Muscat had hardly spoken on immigration matters at all during his four-year tenure at the Brussels European Parliament. On the few occasions when he did, it was to blindly follow the direction of his Socialist supremo and friend-in-need Martin Schulz. Proof of this was his abstention in the voting relating to a European directive that would have limited the duration of detention under the Immigration Act to six months rather than the present 18-month time-limit. At a time when the national interest required him to sustain the government`s stand to retain the present duration of detention for illegal immigrants, Dr Muscat washed his hands of the matter and it was up to Nationalist MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa to protect the nation`s interest instead.

Describing the recent successful inclusion of an express reference to a burden-sharing mechanism as a failure is truly preposterous. For the first time since our joining the EU, the European Council conclusions will include not only a vague reference to burden sharing but to a mechanism supervised by the Commission, which, even if on a voluntary basis, will come to the rescue of hard-hit states. It will not be the panacea to all our problems but it will alleviate our hardship on the same lines as the current US resettlement programme is doing today.

And, by the way; this mechanism will not apply to refugees proper only (as Dr Muscat erroneously stated on two separate occasions) but to all protected persons including those deserving subsidiary (humanitarian) protection; that is, some 55-60 per cent of those who reach our shores. Rejected asylum seekers who compose the remainder have never participated in resettlement schemes not even to the United States.

And, lest one forgets, the Pact for Immigration and Asylum was agreed to after hard and difficult bargaining on the part of the government and was approved by 27 members states including those that are also hard hit by this phenomenon such as Spain, Italy Greece and Cyprus.

The new scheme when launched will not stop immigrants from crossing over but it will establish a new phase in European solidarity on immigration: Participating states will be seen as sponsoring European values, reticent states will suffer a moral deficit. With the mechanism in place, the Commission will supervise its operation to make it a success.

Burden sharing is not about forcing sovereign states to lump immigrants from other countries whether one likes it or not. Such an unrealistic approach is doomed to failure. Indeed, an opposition spokesman said so much last week when he stated that it is impossible to force any member state, or any other state for that matter, to receive immigrants from other countries. Building up pressure on the basis of a voluntary mechanism will more effectively reach the goal of diminishing the burden we and other states are carrying.

During recent years, the debate on immigration has invariably been marked by emotional rather than rational arguments: Send them back. Block them from coming. Take them to nearby states. When right-wing groups had organised demonstrations in Valletta "against illegal migration", I had remarked that, if I knew that demonstrations would stop immigrants form reaching our shores, I would hold such public manifestations on a daily basis.

But life is not as simple as the right wingers would like us to believe. Immigrants will continue to arrive because of the sheer numbers wanting to cross over to Europe and because, even if we had unlimited resources, it is not possible to block entry of rickety boats arriving by sea, the more so when they are in distress and have to be rescued, because neighbouring countries are not as daft as to happily receive immigrants from our shores as if they have an obligation to do so and because returning immigrants without travel documents to war-torn countries is pie in the sky.

This does not mean that the only option is to lift our arms in despair. Campaigning for freedom of movement of protected persons within the EU, strengthening bilateral resettlement programmes, making full use of the EU mechanism to be launched soon, encouraging more immigrants to return to their country of origin and assisting them even financially in the process are the real options available to us.

Dr Muscat should come forward with realistic proposals on immigration and join the government in forming a common front on this issue. Following the demagogic path is bound to haunt him and his party in the future.

Dr Borg is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.