Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday highlighted Libya’s role in combating immigration, getting the Libyan deputy Prime Minister to accompany him in talks with EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy.
“Libya is not part of the problem but must be part of the solution,” Dr Muscat stated repeatedly during Mr Van Rompuy’s five-hour visit to the island.
“We brought to the table solutions and an interlocutor... The solution lies south of the border,” Dr Muscat said.
The unscheduled appearance of Libyan deputy Prime Minister Sadiq Abdulrahman was agreed upon late on Wednesday night and was only announced to the press minutes after his arrival.
At Castille, the three men discussed immigration for around 20 minutes before Dr Muscat and Mr Van Rompuy retired to a working lunch.
Addressing a joint press conference immediately afterward, Dr Muscat said the meeting with Mr Abdulrahman “set the ball rolling for developments that can be achieved in the next few months”.
“We managed to break new ground in seeing a long term solution which we concurred lies at the south,” said Dr Muscat, adding that Libya was showing “unprecedented” willingness to cooperate.
The Prime Minister said “extremely concrete measures” were discussed but it was premature to divulge these proposals.
While he acknowledged that solutions could not be found in two days, he noted that the problem continued to escalate.
“The crisis is impending,” he said, revealing that Malta’s armed forces were monitoring around 500 migrants who had left Libya on their way to Europe.
The huge majority of Maltese are concerned about this issue. I am concerned. This concern should not be mistaken for racism. The Maltese are not a racist people
Mr Van Rompuy stressed that he was “fully aware” of the concerns of Malta, which received “by far the highest number of asylum requests proportionate to your population”.
“The EU is already showing solidarity,” he said, quickly adding: “But of course money alone does not solve the problem.
“I am convinced after this meeting that we have to do more,” he said, adding that he would brief the European Commission on this point when he is back in Brussels.
He called for Europe to deal with the problem in a “humane and effective” way, dealing with its root causes and strengthening surveillance.
Mr Van Rompuy acknowledged that every member state had to comply with international law, but he refused to comment on the threat made by Dr Muscat on Tuesday of returning a group of migrants to Libya.
He stressed, however, that problems could be solved through “dialogue, negotiations, trust and confidence”.
“This is the spirit we had in today’s meetings,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Muscat refuted the idea that his plan to send migrants back to Libya on Tuesday had been “botched”.
“We chose our words very carefully. We didn’t exclude any option. No decision had been made until the last minute,” he claimed, without making reference to the fact that the European Court of Human Rights blocked advanced plans to repatriate the migrants.
Dr Muscat – who will meet the Italian Prime Minister on Monday to continue discussions on immigration – also shrugged off accusations that his actions sparked a racist backlash that manifested itself especially on social media.
The Prime Minister said he did not condone the language used by a “tiny minority” of the Maltese.
“The huge majority of Maltese are concerned about this issue. I am concerned. This concern should not be mistaken for racism. The Maltese are not a racist people,” he said.
Dr Muscat expressed some regret over the way he reacted to a recent comment by European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, who he felt had “diminished the size of the problem”.
The Prime Minister had told Ms Malmstrom that perhaps Sweden, her home country, should take Malta’s migrants.
Apologising for his “British sense of humour”, Dr Muscat insisted that the Commissioner was “wrong” and said he expected more solidarity.
The Prime Minister said Malta would continue to save people’s lives “unreluctantly”.
Dr Muscat and Mr Van Rompuy also spoke about the EU’s economic matters and the issue of energy.
After their press conference, the two leaders went to Parliament where they each addressed Malta’s MPs.
Mr Van Rompuy began his speech with a nod to Malta’s legacy as a “beacon of hospitality” and the fact that the island had developed a reputation as a caring nation.
Thanking Malta for standing by its “currency companions” in the moment of need, he stressed that in today’s reality, economies were interlinked and each country relied on the other.
He praised the Government for prioritising the energy sector, saying that rising energy costs were a detriment to families and business competitiveness.
On immigration, Mr Van Rompuy assured MPs that their concerns were being heard, adding that while solutions could not come about overnight, “time is pressing”.
Dr Muscat thanked Mr Van Rompuy for being such a good listener but reiterated that the Maltese felt abandoned by the EU on immigration.
“This is not a matter of money. Money helps. But we need a more coordinated effort which provides solutions,” he said.
Dr Muscat said Malta raised its voice so that this tragedy would no longer be forgotten by the international media.
“This matter should not be placed in the ‘other news’ section,” he said.
“The way we worked together in Europe to quickly save the banks, we need to be even more agile in the face of people who are drowning,” he added.
Malta had shown unanimous solidarity when Greece required a bailout, offering up three per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to help the fellow Mediterranean country.
“We did it with conviction.... That’s why we feel abandoned.”
Dr Muscat said he was not the type of person to complain without offering solutions. He claimed to have solutions that did not require money but focused on Libya as a crucial partner.
He said Malta would be a “reasonable partner” but one that was willing to raise its voice and to air its disagreements without a sense of inferiority.
Meanwhile, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil began his speech by praising the changes Malta had undergone in the past decade thanks to EU membership.
“We changed our country: our roads, our environment, our infrastructure, hospitals and businesses and we invested in our biggest resource: the human resource,” he said.
Dr Busuttil said people were proud of being Maltese because they came from an extraordinary island with strong traditions and values.
Describing Malta as “hospitable” and “tolerant”, Dr Busuttil said that Malta’s social fabric went against xenophobia, intolerance and racism.
Dr Busuttil said human rights were there for everyone, regardless of race or whether a person arrived by dinghy or by cruise liner.
“It is because we respect fundamental human rights that we did not agree with the Government’s decision to send these migrants back in breach of their human rights,” he said.
He added that the national interest could be defended with reasoned arguments rather than threats or the use of a veto.
He said Malta’s “disproportionate” burden could not be tackled with money alone.
“You must intervene so that this [burden] is spread around Europe,” he told Mr Van Rompuy.
“This side will help the Maltese Government in its efforts for the EU to show more solidarity,” he said.