Malta will have to pay Turkey €1.1 million as its share of an EU agreement for the latter to keep the refugees flowing from Syria on its territory, former Prime Minister Alfred Sant said today.

Addressing the general meeting of the Birkirkara Labour Party centre, Dr Sant said that, through the agreement, the EU promised Turkey €3 billion as compensation. €1 billion would come from the EU’s budget and member states would contribute the remaining €2 billion. Malta’s share of this as of now was €1.1 million, he said.

Dr Sant said that the collapse of the Schengen area was not in Malta’s interests.

The fundamental problem was that although the only way to contain the irregular migration crisis was through a European solution, there was no real agreement between EU states on the issue. Member states were not keeping their commitments and they were not trusting each other, he said.

On the proposal to convert Frontex into an EU agency with direct control over the EU’s external borders, Dr Sant said Frontex could, in an emergency, have the power to take over border control from national governments.

“That amounts to a big cession of sovereignty. Do we want this for Malta,” Dr Sant asked.

Dr Sant said the Maltese needed to take a direct interest in the European refugee crisis as it could influence their future in a big way.

“It is true that Malta seems to have been cocooned from the latest disruptions caused by refugees and immigrants coming over to Europe in their thousands from the Middle East. But it is an illusion to think that Malta can just ignore what is going on. The situation will remain problematic for as long as the civil war in Syria is not stopped and Libya remains a dangerously unstable country,” he said.