Brussels today announced a number of measures, including some affecting Malta directly, to tackle migration problems in the Mediterranean.

Among the initiatives, unveiled by Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Executive proposed the triggering of an emergency response mechanism to assist Italy, Greece and, possibly, Malta and to expand the Frontex-led search and rescue mission to also cover Malta’s vast search and rescue area.

The Commission adopted a recommendation asking member states to resettle 20,000 people from outside the EU, in clear need of international protection as identified by the UNHCR, over two years, based on a distribution key. States  participating in the scheme would be entitled to financial support, with the EU making €50 million available in 2015-16.

Malta will also have to take part in the relocation and resettlement schemes being proposed and is expected to share some of the burden.

It will take 175 people from Italy and 117 from Greece – a total of 292 individuals. With regard to resettlement, Malta has been  assigned 121 people.

All member states, with the exclusion of Greece and Italy, have to participate in the proposed mechanism but the UK and Ireland have ‘opt-in’ rights under the EU treaties, meaning they only participate if they so choose. Denmark has an ‘opt-out’ right.

Other proposals include an EU action plan against migrant smuggling, guidelines on fingerprinting and a public consultation on the future of a scheme making it easier for highly skilled people to work in the EU.

The migrant smuggling plan sets out concrete action to prevent and counter migrant smuggling.

Actions include drawing up a list of suspicious vessels; dedicated platforms to enhancing cooperation and exchange of information with financial institutions; and cooperating with internet service providers and social media to ensure internet content used by smugglers to advertise their activities is swiftly detected and removed.

In a statement, the EPP Group called on the EU Home Affairs Ministers to take a swift decision on the proposals.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.