African immigrants who live in tents in Malta are living in absolute poverty but are not picked up by the EU's statistical radar because they are not considered homeless, a Maltese activist told a conference in Brussels yesterday.
Holger Saliba asked politicians present at the poverty conference whether the EU held accurate statistics on absolute poverty, in order to get an idea of the number of those who lacked basic necessities like food, water and housing.
He said illegal immigration was a problem faced by the EU and not only by Malta.
Mr Saliba, from the Anti-Poverty Forum, headed the Maltese delegation attending a two-day 'People Experiencing Poverty' conference that brought together some 150 poor people from various EU member states and Norway.
The aim of the conference, which ended yesterday, was to give the poor a voice and engage them in the policymaking process.
During a closing debate between country delegates and politicians, Mr Saliba called for the revision of a policy stating that EU-funded programmes could not exceed three years.
Often, he said, beneficial projects had to stop abruptly because the time was up, even though many people were being helped. "I hope this bureaucracy is not chronic," he said, adding that NGOs often struggled with bureaucracy to access funds.
During the meeting, those experiencing poverty in various EU countries, including Malta, called for urgent action to fight the social injustice they face every day.
They listed priorities for the next 10 years in the fight against poverty which included entitlement to affordable, safe and quality housing; support and protection for families; fair wages and the introduction of minimum income as well as access to healthcare.
The priorities that will be listed in the final declaration of the EU's Spanish Presidency were the fruit of workshops carried out on Friday when each participating country identified its own priorities.
On June 17, EU leaders set a goal to lift 20 million Europeans out of poverty within the next decade - a target which amounts to under five per cent of the EU's 500 million citizens.
A recent EU poverty-perception survey found that 61 per cent of Maltese struggled to make ends meet, especially when it came to paying the utility bills.