Christian Peregin
'Red line that cannot be crossed'
Giving voting rights to immigrants "is a red line that cannot be crossed", Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil said yesterday.
"It would send the wrong message, that this is a free-for-all. It could also constitute a pull-factor and would give them the power to elect a government, especially if you consider that the last election was determined by only 1,500 votes," Dr Busuttil insisted.
"In our situation, the last thing we can think about is giving immigrants the right to vote. We would entrench the idea that it's ok to come settle in Malta as if nothing happened," he said.
He was speaking about his immigration report, approved on Wednesday, which harmonised the position of the European Parliament on many aspects of immigration. The report called for migrants to be granted voting rights in local elections, without specifying whether this refers only to general or local council polls.
He said the clause was included in his report because the communists, the socialists, the Greens and the liberals had united in their vote.
The Labour MEPs did not manage to convince their socialist counterparts about Malta's position unlike Dr Busuttil who, he said, managed to bring the whole of the rightist EPP-ED on its side.
He said the issue was "crucial" because in its current situation Malta could not afford to give voting rights to the 5,200 or so African immigrants living in the country.
Dr Busuttil tried to exclude the clause by putting an alternative report to a vote. But, despite the insistence of all the Maltese MEPs, the European Parliament approved the original report with the new clause.
The report was adopted with 485 votes in favour, 110 against and 19 abstentions.
Dr Busuttil accused the Labour Party (PL) of being inconsistent in its approach to illegal immigration by speaking harshly in the Maltese Parliament but voting haphazardly in the European Parliament and not putting enough pressure on its fellow socialists to vote in Malta's favour.
He said the Labour MEPs had abstained from important votes that would affect Malta, sometimes disagreeing between themselves over their positions.
But the PL said Dr Busuttil was only trying to be deceptive because he had voted exactly as they did, adding that if he was trying to criticise the Labour MEPs' voting pattern, he was criticising his own.
Furthermore, despite the influence which Dr Busuttil claimed to have in the European Popular Party, he had not managed to include, in his report, a clear reference to compulsory burden sharing.
Indeed, the report welcomed the Immigration Pact, which only spoke of voluntary burden sharing.
When Labour MEP Louis Grech had proposed the setting up of an immigration agency, Dr Busuttil had not even turned up for the vote and the EPP-ED voted against.
Meanwhile, the other Nationalist MEP David Casa expressed his "utter regret" at the vote of the European Socialists and European Greens on the report.
"The EPP-ED is vehemently against the granting of these political rights to immigrants and will remain so in the future," he declared.
"The Labour Party is waving the veto right in Malta and yet in Strasbourg it is failing to wave the Maltese flag," he insisted.
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GaleaL
Apr 25th 2009, 09:46
laurence schembri
Foreigners from EU countries can vote at local councils and the EP elections bu they have to be registered on the respective electoral register to do so. If they are not Maltese citizens they cannot vote in general elections. The fact that your late spouse was not allowed to vote otherwise was that she probably did not change her citizenship as you yourself said she was a German national. If she did not change citizenship her ID card must show that she was an alien.
laurence schembri
Apr 25th 2009, 01:03
I have no idea as to how this debate has arisen. My late spouse, a German national has lived in Malta for seventeen solid years and could work if she chose to through a `freedom of movement document`, but her ID still classed her as an Alien and she was not allowed to vote except in the last Local Council election three years ago.
a.dalli
Apr 24th 2009, 20:02
Anybody like me serving abroad for a public company loose the right to vote as we cannot be in Malta for six months in the last year and a half before votation. An illigal immigrant could now be allowed to travel.
Kevin Zammit
Apr 24th 2009, 16:36
@E Inglott Quite right. I was a bit puzzled myself when I read this article cause anywhere I looked they said local elections. Besides this is LEGAL immigration not ILLIGAL ones. Now I am one who is very anti illigal immigration but the way I see it, no matter how once the individual is regularised then one contributes and one pays taxes then one should have the right to vote not just local but national as well. What we need to stop is illigal immigration and the uncontrolled fashion in which this occours
E. Inglott
Apr 24th 2009, 14:47
A clarification: the article says that it is not clear if the report means local or general polls. However, only in Malta do we use the word "local" where we in fact mean "national". The word "local" in larger countries has the same meaning as "local council" for us.
E. Inglott
Apr 24th 2009, 14:45
As it is important to get the facts straight: please see this link for information on the report: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/018-54071-111-04-17-902-20090421IPR54070-21-04-2009-2009-false/default_en.htm I quote: "The European Parliament is proposing a blue-print for a common policy on European immigration. The report recognises the importance of LEGAL IMMIGRATION, in the face of Europe's ageing population and declining workforce, but also urges Member States to jointly tackle the problems caused by illegal immigration. They also propose to reinforce migrant's rights, by allowing them to vote in LOCAL ELECTIONS. Local Elections means: elections for local councils. I.e. what the report speaks of, is voting rights for people remaining legally in Malta, and only for local council elections. So it is pertinent not true that persons that have no legal status to be in Malta (or any EU country for that matter) will get voting rights because of this.
Albert Muscat
Apr 24th 2009, 14:10
For the EU to remedy its democratic deficit and not to remain decades backwards in terms of immigrants, a common immigrant’s policy must be signed and agreed upon by all block members. Dr. Simon Busuttil knows this FACT ver well.
Legal immigrants of third country nationals (not EU citizens) that work and legally stay a period of at least five years in EU' soil must enjoy equal rights as Inhabitant citizens including the right to vote in local councels. As for granting the TCN the right to vote in general elctions this depends on national laws.
Remember- such right gave AD chairman Arnold Cassola the right to contest on Italian election.
Terence Mallia
Apr 24th 2009, 11:41
I happen to be doing a dissertation about burden sharing. In Para 79 below a BINDING instrument IS mentioned:
"would add to the burden on those Member States which are faced with specific and disproportionate pressures due, in particular, to their geographical or demographic situation; stresses, however, that these provisions would turn out to be a political statement rather than an effective instrument to seriously support a Member State without the introduction of a two-fold binding instrument for all Member States"
As always the report could have been better, but it is satisfactory overall. You can see it on http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?language=EN&type=TA&reference=20090422&secondRef=TOC
Texts 4
LGalea
Apr 24th 2009, 09:40
"The Labour Party is waving the veto right in Malta and yet in Strasbourg it is failing to wave the Maltese flag," he insisted.
Did not your government in Parliament waive the right to veto in more than 60 new areas when it ratified the Lisbon Treaty Casa?