EP Committee proposes binding burden-sharing mechanism

The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee has proposed the creation of a binding burden-sharing mechanism for the reallocation, among all member states, of migrants who were recognized as being refugees or deserving of humanitarian protection, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi told Parliament this evening.

He said this was one of the results of the Immigration Pact which the Labour Party had said Malta should not sign.

While much remained to be done for this mechanism to be realized, Dr Gonzi said this was clearly the course which Malta should continue to work on.

Speaking at the end of a two-day debate on immigration, Dr Gonzi said illegal immigration was not a political issue and the government never objected to holding this parliamentary debate. Indeed, this debate had shown that there was broad agreement on various areas of illegal immigration, including the detention policy and the treatment of the migrants..

The Maltese people, Dr Gonzi said, were right to be concerned about illegal immigration. So too were the peoples of other European and North African countries. Illegal migration demanded serious, realistic action based on the values which had always guided the Maltese people. First and foremost, most of the migrants were innocent victims and they simply could not be abandoned on the high seas.

The solutions which one had to seek had to be realistic. One had to respect human dignity, as well as Malta’s own limitations of space, population density, and the fact that it was an island. The Immigration Pact acknowledged this and said that when countries were extraordinarily burdened, they had to be assisted.

Referring to Dr Muscat’s speech yesterday, Dr Gonzi said that the fact that of 12,000 arrivals in 10 years, there were now 5,200 was significant. But Dr Muscat in his list of proposals said nothing about repatriations. The number of repatriations from Malta was often higher than in other countries. It was therefore unfair to accuse the government of not doing anything. Repatriations remained fundamental to tackling immigration. The government, however, acknowledged, that more remained to be done.

The next point which Dr Muscat should have included in the list he presented yesterday, was the need for political wisdom. An example of that was how Malta yesterday, in line with international law, refused landing to migrants rescued by an Italian frigate. Some people were arguing that maritime laws should be amended so that rescued migrants would be the responsibility of the state in whose rescue region they were found. But Malta was insisting that in such cases, migrants should be landed in the nearest port. Therefore, Dr Muscat should also have spoken on maritime responsibility.

Another point, which Dr Muscat only briefly referred to, was that aid to third countries should be conditional to those countries facilitating the repatriation of migrants.

Yet another point was that Malta should be involved in repatriation flights by other countries which could use their air forces for this purpose, something which Malta could not do.

Turning to Frontex operations, Dr Gonzi said it was wrong for anyone to say that Frontex drew more migrants to Malta, but Malta was insisting that Frontex should have more assets.

Dr Gonzi said that the government was following an admissions policy for detention centres, as far as possible. But the extent of the admissions policy which Dr Muscat had proposed yesterday would require the opening of more detention centres.

The leader of the opposition, Dr Gonzi observed, had also insisted that the Dublin II agreement needed to be amended. This was already being discussed in Europe and Malta was taking an active part in the debate, which was, again, better than suspending participation.

In his speech Dr Gonzi thanked the security services and the NGOs for their services.