The agreement on migration reached by the EU last week was an “insurance policy” for Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
He defended the deal concluded by the EU leaders despite failure to establish mandatory quotas for resettlement.
“What’s important is the principle. Countries that are not directly affected will now be assuming responsibility. We’ve broken the idea that this is Malta or Italy’s problem to deal with alone,” Dr Muscat said in an interview on One Radio.
EU leaders agreed last week to distribute 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece and to take in a further 20,000 Syrians and Eritreans who fled their countries. They, however, rejected the European Commission’s proposal for mandatory quotas.
Through the deal, Malta will be required to take in 292 migrants from Italy and Greece but will automatically qualify to transfer migrants to other countries should it face an emergency itself.
Insisting the deal would ultimately benefit Malta in future, Dr Muscat said the country was not facing a migration crisis at the moment, with only 92 migrants arriving in the last year compared to some 2,500 reaching Italy every day.
“If there is an emergency in Malta, we now have the precedent and a principle to fall back on,” he said. “This is an insurance policy. The premium is taking 200 people a year but I would rather pay that than have 500 people arriving every week because we haven’t reached an agreement. This is sustainable to us.”
The Prime Minister added that accepting migrants from Italy and Greece had underlined the credibility of Malta’s calls for solidarity and put the country in a strong position for future discussions.
Questioned on the terrorist attacks in Tunisia and France over the past few days, Dr Muscat said he had consulted with the security services in Malta and was confident there was no threat to the safety of the country.
Acknowledging that recent events had shown that “no country was immune” and pledging to remain vigilant, he stressed that there was no cause for alarm.
“We have no information from our own intelligence services or those of our allies to suggest that there is any realistic threat to our country. If there were any such information, we would inform the public straightaway.”
Dr Muscat also spoke briefly on the economy, highlighting recent figures which showed a reduction in the deficit and increased job creation. He said the figures showed the government was making the right decisions to promote growth.
Reacting to Dr Muscat’s comments, the Nationalist Party criticised the Prime Minister for remaining silent in the face of a “soap opera of scandals” that had damaged the public’s confidence in politicians.