Interior Ministers called to Brussels

The Maltese Home Affairs Minister was called to an urgent meeting in Brussels with his Italian counterpart after the ongoing dispute over migration yesterday escalated when Italy published a damning dossier about Malta's search and rescue record.

The Italian minister said the dossier showed 40,000 migrants ended up in Italy because Malta did not intervene in about 600 cases in its search and rescue area.

Home Affairs Minister Car-melo Mifsud Bonnici reacted in similar tone.

"Mr Maroni can prepare as many dossiers as he likes. We are small and it's very easy to perform an audit of what we've done in this case.

"But other larger countries should be subject to the same audits that we are subjected to," he said.

As the two countries traded statements, Brussels was arranging a meeting between the two ministers and Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot, who only recently visited both Malta and Lampedusa on a fact-finding mission.

The latest spat developed after Italy refused a Turkish cargo ship with 140 rescued immigrants from sailing into Lampedusa, the nearest port to where the migrants were rescued.

The migrants were rescued by the Pinar E in Malta's SAR area. According to international conventions cited by Malta, the ship had to disembark the survivors at the nearest safest port of call.

Italy finally took the migrants after a four-day stand-off that ended on Sunday, citing purely humanitarian reasons.

A Commission spokesman yesterday confirmed that the squabble between the two countries was discussed during the weekly meeting of the college of commissioners held yesterday in Strasbourg although no political decisions were taken on the matter.

"During the meeting Commissioner Barrot informed his colleagues about the Pinar E incident. However, although he discussed various lines of action that could be taken by the Commission in the future to help these two countries, no formal decisions was taken. I am sure the subject will be discussed further in the coming days," the spokesman said.

In the Italian dossier, which Mr Maroni said he was sending to Brussels, Italian vessels are said to have intervened 186 times in Malta's SAR area saving 12,900 illegal immigrants last year. In 2007, another 6,255 illegal immigrants were picked up by Italian navy vessels in the waters under Malta's responsibility in 148 interventions.

"We can't go on like this and the Pinar E will be the last episode in which we assume Malta's responsibility," the minister charged in a press conference.

He accused the island that it was only interested in its massive SAR area, covering an area from Lampedusa to Crete, for financial reasons as this provided Malta with money from the EU. "If Malta is taking the money than it should also assume the responsibility of illegal immigrants in distress in its SAR," he said.

But even this claim was shot down by the Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg who said that Malta received no money from the EU for operations in its SAR.

"These figures are wrong as they are based on the wrong premise that Malta has to take all the illegal immigrants in its SAR. This is not the case according to international maritime laws as Malta has only the responsibility of coordinating SAR activities in the area under its responsibility. Even Commissioner Barrot said that saved immigrants have to be taken to the closest safe port," Dr Borg said during a live interview on Rai Radio 1.

Speaking to The Times later, he said that even if for the sake of argument the Italian figures were correct, which he emphasised they were not, Malta could by no stretch of the imagination take in 40,000 immigrants.

"I wouldn't have even dreamt of accepting these numbers," Dr Borg, formerly Home Affairs Minister, said.

He appealed to the Italian authorities to cooperate with Malta on the issue of illegal immigration.

"We should not blame each other and write dossiers on each other. We should come together and write one dossier to convince our EU partners to share some of our burden," Dr Borg said in a conciliatory tone.

The Times is informed that Malta is also preparing its dossier on the incident and the whole illegal immigration situation is to be presented to the Commission.

Dr Borg said he also called on the EU to discuss the issue during next week's EU Affairs Meeting in Brussels.