Malta to go ahead with limited visas to Libyan travellers from April 5

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg insisted at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels today that Malta on April 5 would go ahead with its decision to issue limited territory visas to Libyan travellers if the dispute between Switzerland and Libya persisted.

Dr Borg said that Malta was not going into the merits of the issue. If the Libyan leader's son had been held illegally in Switzerland, that was wrong. If a Swiss businessman was being held illegally in Libya, that was also wrong.

But Schengen area states could not be held hostage by the application of Schengen rules for political reasons by just one state, he said.

Therefore, once new Schengen rules come into force on April 5, Malta would go ahead with its intention to issue visas to Libyan nationals limited to those states which accepted such an arrangement.

Dr Borg told timesofmalta.com that his address had been very well received and it was clear from the meeting that most EU member states felt this issue had dragged on for too long and needed to be settled.

He said that several countries, notably Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus (which is not in the Schengen arrangement) and Slovenia, agreed strongly with Malta.

The Italian foreign minister, in his speech at the meeting, pointed out that the Swiss Schengen blacklist included an eight-year-old boy, and he asked how this boy could be seen as a security threat to Switzerland.

Dr Borg said that in his speech he pointed out that the decision by Libya to stop Schengen visas as retaliation for the Swiss blacklist of 188 Libyans was affecting some 500 Maltese, including workers in Libya and others having business interests, equivalent to some 80,000 in Germany and 60,000 in France.

He welcomed the fact that the Swiss Foreign Minister would in the coming days hold talks with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton and other senior EU officials.

Malta was hoping that the issue would be quickly resolved, he said, but it would not seek anybody's permission before going ahead with its decision on April 5, Dr Borg told timesofmalta.com