The Maltese government has asked the European Commission to explore legal ways to send more migrants and refugees back, according to a document obtained by Politico.

The Commission has been called on to “examine how to interpret and apply” the legal implications of a key humanitarian rule that protects migrants from being returned to a country where they may have reason to fear persecution, the so-called non-refoulement principle, according to the document.

But in an aide-memoire later evaluated by the European Commission, Malta was told that suspending non-refoulement would raise “complex legal issues”.

EU interior ministers met in Malta yesterday before a summit in Valletta on February 3, which is also expected to discuss migration.

“The people taken up by the smugglers need to be saved and brought to a safe place,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told journalists. “Then, from this safe place outside Europe, we would bring into Europe only those who require protection.”

The European Commission has rejected Prime Minister Joseph Muscat proposals to offer Libya a deal similar to the EU's agreement with Turkey on migration, on grounds that the Northern African country remained in a state of chaos.
Mainstream EU parties are facing an onslaught from right-wing and populist parties who have capitalised on anti-migrant sentiment.

A total of 5,000 migrants died in the attempted crossing of the Mediterranean in 2016.