I refer to Martin Scicluna’s article, ‘Valletta’s Immigration Summit’ (November 4). I was struck by how quickly events change and how politicians continue to delude themselves into the belief they can regain control of migration – “let’s hold a summit so that people will know that we have a grip on the situation”.

Most of the points raised by Scicluna are of course founded but sadly have been overtaken by fresh realities. They might have been effective as recently as a year ago but now migration has taken on a dynamic of its own and many people have decided to ‘vote with their feet’ regardless of consequences and are demanding the right of residence in Europe – Frau Merkel, take a bow.

One point raised by Scicluna was the Rabat process under which the Spanish government in cooperation with various West African states succeeded in vastly reducing the flow of migrants to Europe via the Canary Islands by, to put it crudely – stopping the boats.

If that was acceptable in the Atlantic then why when Malta’s Prime Minister suggested something similar in the Mediterranean in 2014 was he howled down? Let us be sure of one thing: there will be a growing demand for something approximating ‘Fortress Europe’ and many of those who are at present largely sympathetic to the migrants will support it.


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