Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia and European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström.

Malta will be given “concrete assistance” by the European Commission to return failed asylum seekers to their country of origin, it was announced yesterday.

The announcement was made in a Government press release following a meeting between Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia and European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström.

They held discussions on irregular migration during an informal Justice and Home Affairs council meeting in Lithuania yesterday.

Malta has already been allocated €820,511 this year from the European Return Fund to help with the repatriation of third country nationals with no legal right to remain here.

Commissioner Malmström promised “additional measures” to expedite the repatriation of such migrants.

Unspecified emergency funds will be made available to Malta to help it cope with irregular migration

The Home Affairs Ministry said it will be making preparations to achieve this aim together with the Commission.

Unspecified emergency funds will be made available to Malta to help it cope with irregular migration, Ms Malmström added.

The issue has been at the top of the local agenda since late June when Prime Minister Joseph Muscat publically threatened to veto unrelated EU measures unless member states showed more solidarity with Malta.

Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim order to stop the Government flying a group of newly arrived Somali asylum seekers back to Libya without allowing them access to asylum procedures.

Following that, Ms Malmström described the policy of “push backs” to Libya as illegal and against the principle of non-refoulment (forced return of a victim to their persecutor) of the Geneva Convention on Refugees and against the European Convention of Human Rights, as confirmed in a recent judgment against Italy.

During their meeting yesterday, Dr Mallia emphasised the need to implement the principle of solidarity and responsibility sharing that is “the very foundation of the European Union”.

He called on the Commissioner to help make the numbers of irregular migrant arrivals more manageable.

The Sunday Times of Malta reported on July 14 that nearly 1,000 migrants have landed so far this year – comparable to figures from 2009, which saw the fourth lowest rate of arrivals since 2003. However, the preceding two weeks were among Malta’s busiest on record, with 669 arrivals.

The UNHCR estimated last February that around 30 per cent of the refugees and irregular migrants who had arrived in Malta in the past 10 years were still on the island, equating to some 5,000 individuals.

Commissioner Malmström said she understood the particular pressures Malta faced and she was ready to help in any way she could.

She also said she will continue to push for the relocation of beneficiaries of international protection from Malta.

Last week Ireland relocated 10 Somali refugees from the island. However, there is no “burden sharing” provision that would make it mandatory for EU countries to accept any irregular migrants who arrive disproportionately in one member state.

Commissioner Malmström pointed out that the Annual Relocation Forum will be organised by the Commission after the summer. This will be a meeting to discuss national asylum systems and the voluntary transfer of refugees across EU countries.

When Commissioner Malmström announced the forum in the European Parliament in May, she described it as the only workable solution as a “huge majority of member states [were] strongly opposed to any legislative instrument” to relocate refugees within the EU.

Dr Mallia and Commissioner Malmström agreed that broad cooperation with Libya would need to be pursued in the long-term, in order to halt what the Government referred to as “illegal migration flows”.

Nearly all irregular migrants arriving in Malta depart from Libya, where many report being held in overcrowded detention centres for arbitrary lengths of time under abusive conditions.

More than 90 per cent of the irregular migrants who applied for asylum in Malta last year were granted refugee or humanitarian protection status at first instance, according to Eurostat data.