May I congratulate the new Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, for having started early and on the right foot on the problem of illegal immigration. The Council of Europe, through its Commission on Racial Intolerance (ECRI), like other international organisations fed by Maltese sources, has tried to lecture Malta on how to deal with this crisis. Dr Mifsud Bonnici was quick to point out that these professional do-gooders did not even mention the two main solutions to the problem, that is, stronger patrols to control our maritime borders and a determined policy of return of these people to their countries of origin. Indeed the Council of Europe's wise men were "lukewarm" about the third leg of the solution, namely, burden sharing by the European countries which are the magnets for this unending flow.
Most of these immigrants wish to go to the former colonial power of the country of origin: Ghanaians and Nigerians to the UK, Chadians to France, Somalis and Eritreans to Italy and so on. Others want to go to some big and rich country like Germany, or one with a reputation of being liberal like Sweden. They find themselves in Malta mostly by chance and they use it as a stepping stone to mainland Europe. As a responsible member of the international community, Malta will not take the easy option recommended by some, of giving these illegal immigrants a Maltese passport to enable them to be sent to their desired destination. First of all, we have laws which prevent us from doing so; secondly, such weakness would make Malta more attractive to immigrants.
Having followed the regular appearance of these reports from so-called independent bodies, I would like to commend the government's reply to the latest one, which can be accessed on: Which is a good defence of Malta's position and we should repeat it whenever our policy is attacked. I have noted that in the press release on the report by the Council of Europe's Commission on Racial Intolerance and accessed on the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs website, I was impressed by the sheer number of statements prefaced by the words "it was reported that" or including words like "reportedly" and "reported". As we all know the best form of evidence is from direct personal experience. Granted that the foreign drafters of the report could not spend a time in Malta to be direct witnesses of what they relate, the least they could have done was to cite their sources. That is what serious writers do: There is a well-known adage that a publication is as good as its sources. If the Council of Europe cannot meet these standards it would do better to keep a low profile.