It was good to read Ranier Fsadni’s demolition of the whole concept of push-backs as the basis of an immigration policy (Push-backs Won’t Work, July 25). The legal, practical and moral deficiencies of such a policy were well set out by him and are unarguable. There are only three viable options open to any country like Malta for dealing with the vexed issue of irregular immigration. These are, to coin a phrase: diplomacy, diplomacy and diplomacy.
It was therefore encouraging to see that, in the immediate aftermath of Malta’s initial debacle, the Prime Minister held talks on the issue with the Italian Prime Minister, and the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security has now done what should have been tried in the first place and opened talks with the European Commission. While nothing tangible came out of the talks, “additional measures to expedite the repatriation of those whose applications for asylum have been rejected” have been promised and the Commission’s Annual Relocation Forum will be organised “after the summer (sic) to discuss national asylum systems and the voluntary transfer of refugees across EU countries”.
The EU’s sense of urgency clearly did not extend far enough to interrupting EU bureaucrats’ or ministers’ summer holidays and our minister’s powers of diplomatic persuasion were not sufficient to press Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom to bring the date of the Forum forward. So, not much for the Government to show for its unnecessarily heavy-handed reaction to the first wave of irregular immigrants, except the stark realisation perhaps that diplomacy with 27 other EU countries on a subject of such complexity and sensitivity was always going to be a heavy slog.
The key lesson from all this is two-fold: first, there are no quick-fix solutions available; and secondly, Malta needs to get its diplomatic skates on. There should be a concerted diplomatic offensive aimed at missions across Europe to rally support for Malta’s unique predicament. Malta should itself come up with specific proposals for a fair relocation policy within the EU. Maltese diplomatic ingenuity, which inspired the seminal UN Law of the Sea conference almost 50 years ago, should be directed now to finding an equitable formula for Europe’s relocation policy, starting a debate based on possible solutions, rather than empty threats of using the country’s veto.
Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia, who seems to be the most accident-prone of the new batch of ministers, must now develop diplomatic skills and a networking ability with his fellow EU interior ministers which have so far eluded him. But if he is to succeed, the Minister for European Affairs, Louis Grech, must also get involved. With Malta’s diplomatic representation virtually throughout the EU still in a state of flux as a wholesale changing of the guard gets under way, this is going to be slow and laborious work.
But beyond this, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, George Vella, also needs to be directly engaged if the source of Malta’s irregular immigration is to be stemmed within the borders of Libya, the transit country from which the overwhelming majority of Malta’s immigrants originate. This will require the most imaginative diplomatic effort embracing not only the EU’s diplomatic muscle and funding support and the involvement of the UNHCR, but also the even more difficult and uncertain cooperation of Libya, which is itself still unstable and largely incapable of delivering on any promises it might make.
In sum, there are three diplomatic strands to the irregular immigration conundrum. First, the accidental diplomat, the Minister for Home Affairs and National Security, must persuade the Commissioner for Immigration and fellow EU interior ministers of the need to develop a fair, simple and workable relocation policy. Secondly, the Minister for European Affairs must re-awaken EU foreign ministers to the need for Europe (whose attention over the last three years has been focused almost exclusively on the eurozone crisis ) to turn its mind to Europe’s – and especially the Mediterranean’s – migration problems. And thirdly, in parallel, the Minister for Foreign Affairs needs to focus, together with like-minded nations such as Italy, France, Spain and Greece, on finding practical and humane solutions to the source of migration within Libya and beyond.
Put like this, the enormity of the diplomatic task becomes more apparent, and the simplistic knee-jerk reaction of the Government to this intractable problem three weeks ago even more vacuous than many of us thought. Only hard diplomatic pounding will offer a long-term solution.