Oil and electoral posturing

Italy's refusal to allow the illegal immigrants rescued by the cargo vessel Pinar E to land at Lampedusa has signalled a policy shift by the Italians which may have caught many unawares, even if the change has been in the making since 2004.

It is still unclear what prompted the Italian government to put its foot down now and insist Malta take the immigrants. For years it has been accepted practice, also grounded in international law, that immigrants rescued in Malta's search and rescue area are taken to the nearest safe port of call.

The search and rescue area within Malta's competence stretches all the way from Lampedusa in the west to Crete in the east. It is a vast stretch of sea, which the island inherited from its colonial past under the British. In the Pinar's case the closest port was Lampedusa.

However, five years ago Italy and Spain had pushed for an amendment to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea so that the country responsible for a particular search and rescue area would also be responsible for accepting people rescued in the area.

The amendment passed but Malta, as was its right, objected and refused to recognise the principle outlined by the two fellow EU member states.

The most recent pressure applied by Italy and Spain was on February 13 when both countries requested the International Maritime Organisation to consider new measures that would guarantee a rapid disembarkation of persons rescued at sea.

They argued that the government responsible for the search and rescue region, where the rescue operation takes place, should exercise primary responsibility for ensuring that such coordination occurs, so that the rescued persons would be delivered to a "place of safety under its control".

Two weeks later, Malta renewed its objection arguing the disembarkation of rescued people would be more rapid if vessels proceeded to the nearest port of call.

Despite having pushed for changes in international conventions, Italy had for the past years maintained its decade-old policy of accepting immigrants if these were rescued closer to its shores.

In this context, the sudden change of heart has baffled analysts, more so when Italy has been pressuring Malta to give up substantial parts of its search and rescue zone.

If Malta were to transfer its area of responsibility to Italy, and the same logic used by the Italians in the Pinar case is applied, Italy would automatically be accepting all the illegal immigrants that attempt to cross over from Libya.

So what could be the reason for the latest posturing by the Italians?

Even if pointing his finger towards Libya, government backbencher Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has already floated one possibility: oil.

Dr Pullicino Orlando argued last Saturday that Libya may be tacitly allowing the issue of illegal immigration to fester in a bid to pressure Malta to give up its large search and rescue area.

The reason, he said, was Libya's interest in oil exploration on the Medina Bank, which lies just within Malta's international boundary with Libya. The boundary was delineated by the International Court of Justice in 1985.

However, Dr Pullicino Orlando insisted that even if reducing Malta's search and rescue area would seem to be a logical solution, it "would also give more muscle to the Libyans who are insisting that the Medina bank is theirs".

A former high-ranking government official, knowledgeable in diplomatic matters, did not exclude the possibility that even the Italians were after the oil.

"Even if the extent of the search and rescue area has absolutely no impact or relevance to a country's oil exploration rights, it is an argument that can be brought in front of the International Court of Justice when it decides on boundary issues," he explained.

When Libya disputed Malta's boundary in the 1980s, the ICJ limited its judgement to a tiny stretch of sea to the south of Malta, covering the width of the Maltese islands. Italy had requested to be a party in that case since it claimed to have an interest in the matter.

"What the decision meant, in effect, was that the boundaries to Malta's west and east were not delineated and the Italians, as much as the Libyans, may harbour an interest in the zone," the former official said.

Even if oil may seem to be a plausible reason, there is another factor, which cannot be ignored.

Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni is a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League and needs to live up to his party's reputation of being hard on immigration, especially ahead of the European Parliament elections in June.

His tough stance, later moderated by Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, may very well be a rallying call for his party.

Mr Maroni may be under pressure to deliver the goods ahead of June to ensure a good showing for his party. In the last general election the Northern League obtained a significant 8.3 per cent nationwide, with very good showings in its northern strongholds.

The result made it an important player in Silvio Berlusconi's government. However, with the recent union of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Gianfranco Fini's Alleanza Nazionale in one big centre-right bloc, the Northern League risked being pushed out of the political scene.

"I would draw a distinction between Mr Maroni and the Italian government. Even if Mr Frattini sounded hard, his words were different. At the end of the day there are the interests of a coalition government at stake."

Even though the Maltese government yesterday insisted that the good relations with Italy were unharmed by the Pinar incident, both countries are steaming through unchartered waters.

With the immigration season picking up, unless a political solution is found the calm may only last until the next boatload of immigrants is rescued.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com