Fr Dionysius Mintoff doesn’t seem to hold much truck with business breakfasts and conferences supposedly held to discuss the issue of irregular migration. In an interview he gave to a Sunday paper, he commented on the way these coffee and croissants outings rarely amount to much.
Judging by the couple of similar events I’ve attended, I agree. Everybody queues up for their little fix of caffeine and jostles to nab the Bourbon biscuits, then they all sit down and political hopefuls take turns at hogging the microphone to state the obvious. It all boils down to a few variations of the following statements.
First, the influx of irregular migrants reaching our shores has increased dramatically. The country cannot continue to sustain this burden. The EU/PN/PL haven’t done, or aren’t doing enough about the matter. Invariably, some speaker or other will exhort Cecilia Wallström, José Manuel Barroso or any EU-related official to wake up and smell the coffee. The Dublin II Regulation will be mentioned, as will St Paul and the way the Maltese migrated to Australia in the 1950s. At which point, some cantankerous old bore will take to his hind legs and insist that the Maltese emigrated to Australia legally (with passports and all) and that basically Australia’s success is mostly due to the hard work of the Maltese migrants.
If anyone dares point out that it is not always possible or easy for people from war-torn countries to apply for, or even have a passport, he or she will be dismissed out of hand. The discussion continues with riffs on the underlying theme being made – and make no mistake – that theme is always the same – that the EU should get us out of this mess. The implication being made is that the EU (for that read ‘all the other countries which are not Malta’) should make the problem disappear.
There seems to be some kind of deep-seated conviction that after having jumped out of their feather-lined beds and smelt the coffee, Wallström, Barroso and the rest of the Brussels posse can simply saunter into some control room deep within the European Commission and switch the ‘Off’ button on the ‘Irregular Migration’ panel. If only it was that simple. It’s not. And the inability to appreciate the enormity and complexity of the phenomenon is only making matters worse.
The inability to appreciate the enormity and complexity of the phenomenon is only making matters worse
On this matter only, I feel a tiny smidgeon of sympathy for our politicians. Because if they adopt an honest and truthful attitude towards the electorate and present them with the unadorned truth, they will be immediately written off by some 98 per cent of the electorate as craven cowards who can’t stand up to the hypocritical EU people. For the truth – painful as it may be – is that there is no magical or immediate solution. When Barroso said this, he was pilloried by those online commenters who want concrete action and who ticked him off as not being fit to take care of the EU (I’m quoting verbatim here). But really, what else can Barroso do?
Let’s say the EU powers-that-be were totally committed to solving the immigration issue and were ready to channel huge amounts of funds in order to do this. What would they do, realistically? Construct huge walls round Libya’s frontiers and harbours?
In the unlikely scenario of this being done with the consent of the Libyan authorities, what’s to stop migrants from finding another way to the European continent? Shall we wall up the whole of Africa? There are other routes that may be used to gain access to Europe.
And if we opt for the totally repulsive push-back solution while the migrants are still at sea, where do we push them back to? What if the countries we push them back to, don’t want them? Shall we leave them to their fate on the open seas because it’s their fault for seeking out a decent life?
Let’s think about the burden-sharing concept a little.
Ideally it would be compulsory for all the EU member states and worked out in such a manner that states take on a number of migrants proportionate to their population. Now, let’s say that burden-sharing does become compulsory and the influx of migrants hailing from Africa are shared out with other European countries. That may go some way in solving the current problem.
But what if migration patterns change and there is a massive influx of migrants from northern Europe or from the Balkan states? We have to realise that we are then going to have to share the burden of the other EU member states too.
What many refuse to accept is that this is not a uniquely Maltese problem. It’s one which has fazed practically all the other members of the EU, Australia and the US, and practically none of them has managed to solve it. Not even the US could stop migrants making it over from Mexico.
This is not a defeatist or pessimistic conclusion but a rational and realistic one. The EU may help to allievate the problem but not to do away with it. The truth is that there is no magic bullet, and anybody insisting that there is must be sadly deluded.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt