The EU’s border agency, Frontex, has reached the unsurprising conclusion that, given the political instability throughout North Africa but most especially in Libya and Egypt, this coming spring and summer will witness “high migration pressure” in the central Mediterranean.
Most migrants who flee Libya are heading for mainland Europe through Lampedusa and Sicily. But many find themselves landing in Malta, having been rescued in distress by the AFM.
According to the report by Frontex, last year, the central Mediterranean region was the busiest migration route used by irregular immigrants in the previous five years. Of 42,618 irregular border crossings detected in the EU between July and September, more than half – 22,000 – occurred on the route between Libya and Sicily. Of these, 2,008 ended up in Malta, second only to the peak of 2,704, which reached Malta five years earlier.
The early warning made by Frontex is indeed timely. A repeat of 2008 and 2013 appears highly likely.
Malta’s ability to cope with the scale of immigration being envisaged poses huge social, political, practical and economic difficulties for which it needs to be prepared. The arguments are genuine.
This is a tiny and extremely densely-populated island, the most densely-populated in Europe by far. Although Lampedusa has been worse hit by migration - and last year’s tragic drownings are etched vividly in the memory, it, at least, enjoys the safety valve of being part of a bigger country: Italy.
Malta has no such safety valve. When immigrants arrive, they are stuck here. Coming on top of the numbers who are already in Malta, the prospects of more arrivals – and this week’s was a prelude – would magnify an already difficult situation to crisis proportions.
Given this early intelligence warning by Frontex, what should Malta be doing to ease the situation? There are two key areas where action should immediately be taken: diplomatic and practical.
On the diplomatic front, steps should be taken at the highest level to appeal for solidarity in helping Malta to cope with a likely major influx of this nature. It should seek to build on the agreements – limited though they were – reached at the December EU summit.
A mechanism to trigger burden-sharing among EU member states in exceptional circumstances following a mass influx of displaced people already exists. Malta should prepare the ground for its possible implementation, which would give migrants temporary protection status in all EU member states and would bind countries to cooperate in the transfer of people enjoying this status from one country to another.
The second is the need for practical preparation. Even if it were agreed to trigger the emergency mechanism for burden-sharing, it will take time to do so.
Detention centres can cater for just under 2,000 immigrants. The centres are woefully inadequate and when they become overcrowded they become virtually uninhabitable. Urgent steps must be taken now for Malta to be prepared to handle many hundreds more in decent accommodation. This will require the opening of fresh accommodation centres before the influx occurs and the provision of administration and manpower oversight to run them.
Time is of the essence. The government must go into overdrive, both on the diplomatic front and in its practical contingency arrangements. It is no good hoping the problem will not arise. The lesson of the last decade of illegal immigration to Malta is that it probably will.