Passports were being sold for €5 a piece at Valletta’s entrance as EU and African leaders made their way to Auberge de Castille yesterday afternoon.
In splendid weather that left many journalists posted at the media centre in Fort St Elmo gasping at the beauty of the Grand Harbour, Valletta played host to what has been described as a historic summit.
The sale of passports was obviously not on the agenda. The makeshift stand was a tongue-in-cheek protest by activist and writer Antoine Cassar, who wanted to shed light on the realities faced by migrants.
The small-scale demonstration contrasted Malta’s initiative to sell citizenship to wealthy foreigners with asylum seekers having all the odds stacked against them.
Leaders would not have noticed the protest, shielded in their high-powered cars as they were escorted by police motorcades to the newly refurbished Castille Square.
Security was tight everywhere. Snipers were placed on rooftops, army helicopters circled Valletta constantly and patrol boats scoured the seashore beneath the Mediterranean Conference Centre. The Royal Navy’s HMS Bulwark was berthed in Grand Harbour with special forces on board in the case of emergency.
Leaders lined up on the steps of Castille for a short opening ceremony as a bell at Our Lady of Victory church struck to mark the start of a minute’s silence in remembrance of the thousands of migrants who left their countries in search of a better life but died along the way. But the fresh faces of leaders from more than 40 European and African countries belied the reality that technocrats from all sides had spent the previous days trying to draw up the summit conclusions.
Sources said technical talks had continued until 5am on the eve of the summit and they were anything but easy. African countries are demanding more development aid and greater opportunities for legal migration avenues into Europe.
In return, European countries want African states to accept migrants who are sent back because they do not warrant protection. The EU will be setting up a trust fund of €1.8 billion to tackle the refugee crisis. For many in Africa the figure pales into insignificance considering the number of countries from where migrants leave or transit through.
The EU will be setting up a trust fund of €1.8 billion to tackle the refugee crisis
International aid organisation Oxfam tried to put the figure into perspective when it highlighted the fact that African countries were losing some $50 billion in unpaid taxes by European companies operating in their countries.
The money will come from the European Commission, but member states will also be expected to contribute. Malta has pledged €250,000 and sources yesterday said other EU countries would follow suit.
How big the money pot will be will become clearer this morning,but the trust fund is very likely to be the most concrete proposal on the table at the Valletta Summit, even if it may not fulfil expectations.
Other measures will include the doubling of EU scholarships for African students and more research slots. These were the legal avenues of migration on the table, but sources said bilateral talks between the individual European and African states would likely lead to more arrangements of sorts.
Before entering Castille, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Europe and Africa were “interdependent” and the meeting had to explore new avenues of cooperation, which included investment aid for Africa.
However, she avoided the question when asked whether the bigger stumbling block was the internal division within the EU over how to tackle the migration crisis.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was the first to erect a fence along his country’s border to stop Syrian refugees from crossing, just walked up the steps of Castille, ignoring journalists’ questions.
Only yesterday, Sloveniacalled in the army to start erecting a razor wire fence along its border with Croatia.
In Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s words, the Valletta Summit is likely to represent a first step in the right direction.
It may be an important step but is nonetheless a step that will depend on the willingness of the leaders involved to find permanent solutions to an exceedingly complicated situation that cuts across borders.