EU to hold special conference for Malta

The European Commission will be making an extra effort next week to help Malta lighten its burden of immigration by inviting other member states to make pledges of resettlement at a special conference.

It will ask the countries to show “real solidarity” by taking a specific number of refugees from Malta under a pilot scheme introduced specifically for the island in 2008.

The conference will take place in the margins of an extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on Thursday.

The announcement of this initiative – the first of its kind – was made yesterday by the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström during the presentation of a set of new proposals on migration, which will be discussed by ministers next week and then by EU leaders during their June summit.

Admitting that the EU was currently “not fully equipped to help those member states most exposed to massive migratory movements”, Ms Malmström appealed to member states to translate their “nice words” of solidarity into concrete action by helping Malta. At the same time she warned that the EU could not force member states to show solidarity.

“We really want to help Malta and that is why we are organising this conference, to hear more pledges of asylum seekers being relocated through the intra-EU resettlement programme designed for the island. However, the EU cannot force solidarity and burden sharing. Member states are sovereign to take their decisions but we expect them to translate their promises into concrete action,” she said.

Despite being introduced in 2008, the pilot project managed by the Commission has so far produced few results as many member states remained opposed to the concept of burden sharing. Fewer than 300 refugees from Malta have moved on to other EU countries so far.

Following the Libyan crisis the Commission decided to give a further boost to the programme by extending it and making a new appeal to member states to relocate the hundreds of Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans who arrived in Malta a few weeks ago. Since then, a handful of member states have pledged to resettle less than 200 persons given protection by the Maltese authorities.

Commissioner Malmstrom said that in order to be able to provide more help to the countries on the EU’s borders, such as Italy and Malta, the EU needed to further develop its systems including those related to financial assistance and burden sharing.

She announced that later this year the Commission would be presenting new proposals to further enhance intra-EU resettlement while restructuring the way the Commission can distribute funds so this will be done more quickly. According to the Commission’s document to be discussed next week, “the currently available instruments at the EU’s disposal fall short of fulfilling all the needs and providing a comprehensive response (to Malta and Italy). They can only be resorted to in an ad hoc manner, and are entirely dependent on the will of member states to voluntarily offer assistance – in whatever form – at a given point in time. This in turn exposes the EU to criticism and risks undermining the trust of the citizens in the EU.”

At the same time, she said that the EU executive is seeking to address the migration issue with a comprehensive strategy for the long term and was against “short term populist measures” promoted by those who thought they could solve the problems overnight in order to gain easy popularity.

In its proposals, the Commission also addressed the plight of some member states, particularly France and Italy, with a proposal to revise the rules of the borderless Schengen area so that member states can re-introduce border controls in case of severe migratory pressures.

“The mechanism should be used as a last resort in truly critical situations, until other (emergency) measures have been taken to stabilise the situation at the relevant external border,” the Commission said.

Brussels’ migration proposals

• Completion of the Common European Asylum System by 2012.

• Strengthened border control and Schengen governance to address irregular immigration, to ensure that each member state effectively controls its part of the EU’s external borders.

• Better targeted legal migration into the EU to facilitate the immigration of persons with skills needed to assist the EU to fill expected labour and skills shortages.

• Sharing of best practices in member states’ approaches to the integration of legal immigrants in the EU.

• A strategic approach to relations with third countries on migration-related issues, aimed at facilitating movement of persons and preventing irregular migration.