The spring Eurobarometer survey showed that over 80 per cent of Maltese were feeling well content with the country’s economic situation. Despite the government’s abysmal recent record on the environment and its involvement – whether wittingly or unwittingly – in sleaze among senior police officers and possible ministerial connivance in land expropriation deals, it can depart on its summer break at least safe in the knowledge that insofar as the most important electoral factor is concerned, the Minister for Finance is steering a steady course.
But in line with many in Europe, the Maltese top the list in regarding immigration as the main issue facing the EU.
Malta (with 76 per cent) leads the field by a comfortable mile in holding this to be the most important issue it faces as a nation, followed by Germany (46 per cent), and the United Kingdom and Denmark (35 per cent). Eighty-four per cent of Germans and Maltese want a common policy on immigration.
Even allowing for the fact that this survey was conducted at the height of the spring immigration crisis in the Mediterranean, why is it that the Maltese are so paranoid about this issue? Like all island nations (the UK is another), islanders suffer from a visceral dread of invasion. In Malta’s case, this is exacerbated by our tiny size, our history of subjugation by various powers and, most importantly, by our proximity to Libya which is the main transit route into Europe.
Today, there are three reasons why the Maltese feel so strongly about immigration: one good, one utterly bad and one which is explicable on practical grounds. The good reason is that there are many people – sadly, in a minority – who recognise the plight of those thousands who are fleeing civil war, persecution and abject poverty. They are paying a huge human cost. Many Maltese recognise that rich Europeans, among them this country, have a humanitarian (and Christian) duty to help.
Secondly, the utterly bad reason lies in the blatant racism demonstrated by many Maltese, of which the disgusting treatment of a black Hungarian by gung-ho police officers is but the tip. I would venture that the majority of Maltese across all strata of society subscribe to the view that “black African and Muslim refugees” have no place in Malta and should be “returned whence they came”.
The lack of political will among craven EU leaders is palpable and lies at the heart of the problem
Successive governments have ducked their responsibility to change this attitude by implementing a comprehensive policy of integration for those who have been given asylum or protected status here.
Malta’s challenges with immigration are long-term. A sizeable core of asylum seekers will settle in Malta and become an integral part of the community.
The proper development of an integration policy which addresses employment, education, housing and social security entitlements in a holistic manner is long overdue. It is vital that a comprehensive action plan for integration is implemented and, most importantly, that the government and Opposition don’t play political games over it. The longer pro-active policies on integration are postponed, the more difficult will be the future consequences for Malta.
Thirdly, there are the pragmatists, who recognise that Europe has a problem which must be managed, but that it seems incapable of either confronting it or, worse, even beginning to solve it.
Rightly, that is their cause for concern, which is reflected in the high 76 per cent response on the issue.
The EU plan, launched on May 13 – the ‘Agenda on Migration’ – was high on ambition and headline-grabbing rhetoric but low on actual delivery. Three months down the line, the mandatory relocation of asylum-seekers who reach Europe, based on a quota mechanism (so that the burden of processing refugees is shared more equally between EU nations), has disappeared into the Brussels ether. A legislative proposal for the introduction of a permanent system of “responsibility sharing to be tabled by the end of the year” is dead in the water.
The grandstanding by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, about the deployment of European warships off the coast of Libya “to target people-smugglers and to disrupt their business model” has sunk without trace.
The efforts by the UK and France to seek a UN mandate from the Security Council on behalf of the EU for a naval operation inside Libyan waters to break up the Libyan networks has not been heard of again – seen off, I suspect, by Russian and Chinese reservations.
Is it any wonder that, while highly paid, but utterly ineffectual, EU bureaucrats go off on their summer holidays with no tangible progress to show for the Union’s so-called ‘Agenda for Migration’, Europeans – not simply those who are racist – regard immigration as one of their top concerns?
The populist anti-government backlash against austerity and immigration is a reflection of citizens’ anger at Brussels’ ineffectiveness.
By July this year, Italy had already received 92,000 new arrivals through the central route into Europe, mainly from Eritrea, Somalia, Syria and Libya, while poor, benighted Greece received 89,000 through the eastern route, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Germany received 76,000 applications for asylum in the first quarter of 2015. Hungary has received 39,000, France 20,000 and Sweden 15,000.
From the toe of Italy to Calais and from the Balkans to northern and central Europe, the continent is awash with immigrants while Brussels and EU leaders are asleep at the wheel.
The announcements at the EU leaders’ June summit were designed to grab the headlines and to give an impression of forward movement.
But it can be seen now that European citizens were being sold a false prospectus. Europe is paying a high price for its damage limitation policies in the Middle East. The dual fundamental problems of swelling waves of migration from the Middle East and Africa, and relatively open borders within the EU, will continue to dog all European countries.
Immigration is a complex phenomenon not readily susceptible to quick solutions. But the lack of political will among craven EU leaders is palpable and lies at the heart of the problem.
The only practical way to keep migrants out of the Mediterranean Sea and South-Eastern Europe is to set up transit camps in North African or Middle Eastern countries. These can be designed to take people rescued at sea, or at arrival points for those carrying out the long trek across Africa or Asia.
Their asylum applications can then be considered in these transit camps, thus enabling the EU to exercise some control over the whole process without exposing front-line states to the administrative, financial and social burdens of handling the applications of thousands arriving illegally by sea or land.
There must be a humanitarian pathway through the current immigration chaos that is engulfing Europe. Although it was announced in May that talks between the EU and Tunisia on establishing transit camps had begun, and it was thought that Morocco, Niger and Nigeria might also be willing to cooperate, there has been a deafening silence since.
The challenges to Europe are massive. It was Europe (with American leadership) that in the ensuing chaos after 1945 was able to create the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees which successfully resettled millions of stateless persons throughout the continent.
Where are the inspirational leaders today to deal with Europe’s migration problems? Not in Brussels apparently.