Ivan Camilleri, Brussels
Brussels in talks with Tripoli over €5bn request
Brussels to report back to ministers this week
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s request for €5 billion a year from the EU to stop Africans crossing over to Europe illegally is under discussion at high-level talks in Tripoli.
Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström’s visit to the Libyan capital is aimed at boosting ongoing discussions on the possibility of signing the first cooperation framework agreement between the EU and Libya, the European Commission said yesterday.
The agreement would cover various areas but primarily the fight against illegal immigration. The meetings will run until tomorrow.
Libya has been postponing such a visit from high-ranking EU officials for the past years and Ms Malmström’s predecessor, Jacques Barrot failed to hold face-to-face talks with Tripoli as his planned visit kept being postponed by the Libyan authorities. Talks have been held for the past two years at a technical level but are far from being concluded.
The EU has made it clear it wants to help Libya fight illegal immigration while guaranteeing the rights of sub-Saharan Africans to claim asylum status. Libya is not a signatory to the UN Geneva Convention for the protection of refugees.
It is estimated that thousands of sub-Saharan Africans enter Libya from its southern borders every month intending to journey to Europe.
During her trip, Ms Malmström, who is accompanied by Commissioner Stefan Fule responsible for the neighbourhood policy, will be also visiting Libya’s southern borders to see how Libyans are coping with the flow of immigrants.
Asked whether the talks would involve the financial demands made by Libya to prevent more immigrants from crossing over to Malta and Italy, a Commission spokesman said “financial compensations will be part of the deal”.
During a visit to Italy last month, Colonel Gaddafi asked the EU for €5 billion a year to prevent hundreds of thousands of “ignorant” Africans from “turning Europe black”.
Although the Commission had refrained from commenting directly on Libya’s demands it had cited ongoing talks on possible cooperation on the issue.
On the other hand, Malta had said Col Gaddafi’s request for compensation was justified although it refrained from entering a debate on the actual amount.
Ms Malmström is expected to report on the conclusions of her talks in Libya to the EU Justice Ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday. Almost all immigrants who have landed in Malta and southern Italy in the last few years started the final lap of their journey to Europe from Libya.
The flow of irregular immigrants towards Malta and Italy has ebbed substantially since May 2009 when joint patrol missions between Rome and Tripoli started taking place in Libya’s territorial waters.
This success has led to the Maltese authorities withdrawing from a planned EU anti-migration patrol mission off the coast of Malta to have been conducted in summer by the EU’s border control agency Frontex.
The so-called pushback policy has elicited the protests of several humanitarian organisations as well as the Vatican since immigrants from war-torn countries with potential refugee status were being sent back to Libya.
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Mario Grungo
Feb 2nd 2011, 21:07
Never. i think the best way is to invest it in Europe itself in the form of better patrols by European nationals using European equiptment. Would any european with a small amount of intelligence seriously think that the good Colonel would keep his promise! Pull my other one. I would tell Gaddafi a straight no.
If on the other hand he is prepared to sell Europe oil at half the market value, perhaps, one would consider his proposal!
Otherwise no way.
We should all lobby our MEPs to stop the talks immediately. The money will have to come from somewhere and you can bet your bottom dollar that we will be asked to pay more taxes to the detriment to those Europeans who need it most; the pensioners, allowances to students, the unemployed. Are we prepared to sacrifice these people to pay off a bully who wants the money just to play the bully?
Charles Callus
Oct 6th 2010, 08:00
If I am not mistaken, a couple of years ago Gaddafi kicked up a fuss becuase Italy had offered money as a means of compensation. Someone correct me if I am wrong but back then the good Colonel had said something like "They think they can buy us.Libya has enough money.What we want is infrastructure, investment, technologies" (eco-friendly and otherwise I would presume).
But now here comes in blackmail (for want of a better term) to the tune of €5 billion. So I guess they want the money. I wonder where the Libyan navy is - probably guarding the tuna pens from poachers.
This claim/ request by the good Colonel should have been confined to the bin of crank ideas. Libyans should learn to do the dirty work themselves and not use the immigrants from Africa as slaves and the unleash them onto Europe when they get fed up of them.
Out of our pockets the EU is now throwing money at a problem that is only going to snowball.
M.Bezzina
Oct 5th 2010, 22:13
I think the EU would be better to give those money to us!!
J. Spiteri
Oct 5th 2010, 21:46
@ Sean Grima. And what about OUR rights. Are you by any chance personally gaining from these illegal visitors to our island? Honest answer please! Why is it that you practically NEVER stand on the defense of your own country (?) with regards to illegal immigration?
Sean Grima
Oct 7th 2010, 13:03
I do not stand to gain in any way. your premise that people only act because they stand to gain financially is wrong.
another false premise is that malta needs defending "against" illegal immigrants.
Ludwig Flask
Oct 5th 2010, 18:45
Col. Muammar Gaddafi is an eccentric dictator as quoted by foreign press. Today there is no place for dictatorship. If Brussles is going into the hassle of discussing this matter than the EU is the mother of dictatorship. NO to Col. Muammar Gaddafi request - NO to illegal immigration!
Robert Agius
Oct 5th 2010, 15:34
Hiring a few pirates would be much cheaper... Europe can learn something from Africa too after all, or is it only Europeans that have the duty to respect rights?
Considering giving Gaddafi 5bn Euros??? are they crazy????? They are already wasting money simply discussing the matter.
Sean Grima
Oct 7th 2010, 13:04
we respect human rights, irrespective of whether african governments do so too.
Louise Vella
Oct 5th 2010, 14:46
€ 5 billion in compensation? It would cost much, much less for the EU to take over Italy's role in the push back policy by setting up a strong coastguard - Frontex with teeth - to repel the boats that Libya allows to leave.
"the right of sub-Saharan Africans to claim asylum status". The Swede Cecilia Malmstrom is the wrong person to negotiate with Gaddafi. Her country has sent back to Malta 550 African illegal immigrants who had succeeded in making their way, illegally, to Sweden. And still the Swedes lecture us and the other countries of southern Europe about how to deal with illegal immigrants. Gaddafi himself called them "starving and ignorant" - his exaggerated words to say they are economic migrants and not refugees. He thus pulled the rug from under UNHCR's feet, which keeps calling these illegal immigrants asylum seekers. UNHCR never commented on Gaddafi's statement.
Sean Grima
Oct 7th 2010, 13:04
you are clearly out of your depth. EU commissioners do not represent their national government, but the EU.
Ludwig Flask
Oct 7th 2010, 20:34
@ Sean Grima, agreeing with what Louise says on the issue of illegal immigration, may I rephrase your comment to - EU commissioners only represent their pockets!
mark chetcuti
Oct 5th 2010, 14:32
qedin sew inhalsuh biex ma jibatx klandestini b 5 biljuni ewri nixtri flotta dghajjes ghas suldati u nibathom jitrenjaw fuqhom ( 1 barra 2 barra 3 isfel)
Adrian Gouder
Oct 5th 2010, 12:15
Are we honestly considering paying Libya to keep immigrants away? What about paying the whole African Coast then?! If we are serious about keep immigrants at bay, tackle them at source. Open refugee offices in Libya itself or other African countries, and send back the boats by force. Does anyone seriously think we are helping by accepting refugees? What about the millions (or billions more like) that cannnot make it to our shores? Any we accepting the healthies leaving the weakest to rot in their own country?
Sean Grima
Oct 5th 2010, 12:49
send back the boats by force? do you have any idea of human rights?
ASpiteri
Oct 5th 2010, 10:06
It is only pure madness the fact that the EU bureaucrats are even considering Gaddafi’s request!
First of all Libya is not the only entry point of third world immigrants towards Europe. If the EU would ever grant such sum to Libya, then other countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco will also claim 5 billion a year!
Beside the fact, that Gaddafi is only bullying Europe as he senses a spineless leadership in the helm of the old continent.
Anthony Briffa
Oct 5th 2010, 11:40
This is a sign of feableness on the part of the EU in general and of those governments which condoned Gaddafi's financial request in particular, including Italy and Malta. All the talk of solidarity and humanitarian respect towards these unfortunate people has all gone by the way sides because no politician in europe can stand up to Gaddafi. The fact that the EU started discussions on the matter shows that it is not interested in helping these refugees to improve their standard of living in their own countries, and it is sending a signal to the regimes in the sub-saharn countries, which incidentally are all friends of Gaddafi, to continue to supress their own people. Cecilia Malmstrom should have toured the sub-saharn countries and seen for herself what the EU can do to inject funds there to improve education, healtcare, roads, civil administration, investment to create work, etc, rather than taking the way of least resistance and discuss funding to a regime which is blackmailing europe with islamization if the funding it wants fails. The EU is only helping to foster misery behind Gaddafi's blockade of his borders. Shame on the EU if the request is met.
ASpiteri
Oct 5th 2010, 12:24
@anthony briffa...i don't care how gaddafi treats refugees down there, he call them african brothers, so why should i have any concern on how one treats his own brothers. my only alarm is that gaddafi is bullying us around and the puppet politicians, both locally and those in brussels, don't have the moral fibre to simply shut him up!
he is single handedly the most dangerous leader in the whole arab world. and we have him just under our noses!