Burden-sharing or burden-shifting?

As The Times editorial rightly noted last week, a recent European Parliament study "confirmed unequivocally what Malta has long insisted on about the burden of immigration", namely that we carry the highest burden proportionate to our size and means.

The study looked into what system of burden-sharing should be applied within EU member states for the reception of asylum seekers. It was commissioned on the request of the Civil Liberties Committee of which I am a member.

It reached conclusions that have long been clear for us. But the fact that they are now listed in an independent study makes them clearer for our counterparts in Europe and makes our case stronger.

In essence, the study is divided into two parts. In the first part, it examines the distribution of responsibilities for asylum seekers. In the second, it examines different options the EU may deploy to share the burden fairly.

Regarding the distribution of responsibilities, the study compared the burdens in the member states with their national capacity to receive asylum seekers. It did so using different formulas, for instance, on the basis of wealth, population and population density. Unsurprisingly, in each of these formulas Malta is singled out as the country that is, by far, carrying the most disproportionate burden. In terms of costs alone, for instance, Malta is found to be carrying a burden that is 1,000 times greater than Portugal.

Other countries that were found to be shouldering a burden, albeit by far lower than ours, include Cyprus and Greece. On the other hand, the countries found to be carrying no burden at all in relation to their capacity include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal. Big countries, such as the UK, France, Germany and Italy, feature somewhere in the middle.

With regard to the different options the EU may deploy to share the burden, the two key ones examined in the study are that of providing financial compensation to offset the burden and of moving immigrants from countries that carry a disproportionate burden to others that do not. A softer option of pushing for greater cooperation was found to be insufficient in addressing inequalities.

Under both these policy options, Malta stands to gain most because it is the one that carries that greater burden.

The study points out that financial compensation needs to be increased substantially in order to achieve greater equality. But it concludes that it is the physical relocation of asylum seekers that is most effective in achieving a true responsibility-sharing among EU countries. It, therefore, suggests that the EU should study the costs and benefits of free movement to asylum seekers, which would enable them to move from over-burdened countries to others.

I had been looking forward to the conclusions of this study for a long time as it was commissioned more than two years ago and I welcome its findings because it confirms that our concerns on our disproportionate burden were justified and were not frivolous whining intended to shift our own responsibilities, as some may have thought.

The study also comes at a good time when a new Commission has just been voted in and when the new EU Commissioner on Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, has clearly expressed her intention to tackle responsibility-sharing during her mandate. The Commission also announced it is studying the pilot project to support Malta through the internal relocation of asylum seekers, a project that has, so far, not lived up to expectations.

Simultaneously, in the European Parliament, work has resumed on the new package of legislative initiatives on asylum - the asylum package - which include the setting up of the European Asylum Support Office (whose location in Malta is more than symbolic) but also the revision of the Dublin Regulation that places the responsibility for asylum seekers on the country of the first point of entry.

Last May, the European Parliament already endorsed the proposal to suspend this regulation with respect to countries that carry a disproportionate burden. However, the proposal remains stuck in the Council of Ministers.

Now if the Council wants an agreement on the asylum package, then the revision of the Dublin Regulation must be part of it. This is the stand I will push.

I intend to take up Ms Malmström on her word and I expect her to deliver on giving a more human face to the European common asylum policy. But the human face must apply solidarity not just to asylum seekers but also to countries that have, so far, been left to tackle the influx of immigration on their own.

We must move from burden-shifting to a true sharing of responsibility.

www.simonbusuttil.eu