During the French Presidency of the European Union in 2008, then President Nicolas Sarkozy had made a valiant effort to tackle the immigration problem through the signing of the EU Pact on Immigration and Asylum.
From a Maltese perspective, the pact signified a turning point. For the first time, there was overdue recognition of the massive problems faced by it.
Secondly, Malta secured a considerable concession through the inclusion in the pact of a resettlement arrangement which would enable the island to share some of the immigrants to whom asylum had been granted among other EU countries, albeit that disappointingly this was only to be done on a voluntary basis.
In 2009, the Commission launched a pilot project called Eurema designed specifically for member states voluntarily to relocate asylum seekers from Malta. Under European Parliament pressure, the Commission announced it would make a legislative proposal to make the scheme permanent.
Although the Commission had promised to make this proposal last year, it again postponed its launch as such a scheme would have required the backing of all member states. With the exception of Germany and France, few member states showed enthusiasm for Eurema.
Almost five years after the signing of the Immigration Pact, the wind appears to have gone out of the European Commission’s sails on this subject. The key issue, on which Malta had pinned so much hope, of a properly structured, permanent voluntary, relocation programme lies in tatters.
European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced that the promise in 2011 to propose a permanent, voluntary scheme could not be met “because the huge majority of member states are opposed to this idea”. The proposal was dead in the water.
Instead, Ms Malmström said she would now be proposing “an annual forum” to discuss transfers of refugees between EU countries. While the difficulties of obtaining any European consensus on immigration is understood, the fact that less than five years after the signing of a comprehensive Immigration Pact it appears to be a dead letter must be a cause for concern which further undermines the credibility of the European Union’s much-vaunted “solidarity”.
A report commissioned by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament three years ago confirmed Malta bore the heaviest burden proportional to its means of any EU member state when it came to dealing with immigration.
Ms Malmström’s inability to persuade other EU countries to change the way the current gross imbalance in the burden of immigration is handled across the Union tells us a lot about the state of cooperation and solidarity in the EU.
Malta and other countries continue most unfairly to suffer the consequences of Commission inertia and other countries’ unwillingness to help.
The effects of this are not simply financial, but may also carry long-term consequences which are unpredictable and more difficult to grapple with.
It is time for the Government to get its diplomatic skates on to persuade the Commission and other major member states that, despite the all-engrossing nature of the eurozone crisis, there are other important aspects of EU policy affecting citizens that also need urgent constructive attention.
It is, however, essential for the Government to target the EU’s bureaucratic problem - and not the migrants who are often fleeing poverty and persecution.