A comprehensive report, commissioned by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament, has confirmed unequivocally what Malta has long insisted on about the burden of immigration. The tiny island bears the heaviest burden, proportional to its means, of any member state of the European Union.
It tops the chart across the board in a new study that analyses the costs incurred by member states relative to the country's capacity and financial resources to deal with asylum applications and the hosting of illegal immigrants.
Malta, with what the report called "the lowest capacity" to deal with the problem, based on the size of its economy, its population size and population density, incurred the highest relative spending on illegal immigration as a proportion of its GDP across the EU. The report highlights, for example, that, in 2007, Malta spent 1,000 times more than Portugal as a share of GDP, with the island facing over six times more applications for asylum than Portugal, while, at the same time, having a GDP that was 30 times smaller. The report concludes, as Malta has always been saying, that it is bearing a weight which is disproportionate to its capacity to deal with it.
The report also goes on to analyse the various attempts that have been made by the EU to alleviate the burden on countries like Malta. It concludes, disconcertingly, that such initiatives have had little or no impact on the island, highlighting the recent so-called "responsibility-sharing" agreement whereby member states can voluntarily agree to take a number of refugees from Malta. "There are, however, strong arguments," it states, "that these measures are more symbolic than anything else as they have had a negligible impact on the costs and the overall pressures experienced by Malta".
The same criticism is levelled at the Frontex patrols in the central Mediterranean, which have "so far not proven their worth".
The report makes two clear recommendations. First, it argues that, in order to make a significant impact, particularly on over-burdened member states such as Malta, funding or financial support needs to be substantially increased, albeit, even if this were to happen "Malta would still carry disproportionate costs". Secondly, that the (compulsory) burden-sharing proposal, which has long been strongly advocated by Malta and Italy, should "be looked into". The report goes on: "The costs and benefits of various options for physical distribution of asylum-seekers may need to be assessed".
It is a pity that a report that has made a decent attempt at an honest and frank analysis of the problem should end so weakly. In a way, one is therefore inclined to conclude, this is simply more of the same: nice words but very little substance, if any. The weasel-wording used in the recommendation on burden-sharing - which must surely be regarded as the core of any future solution to Malta's problems on illegal immigration - does not augur well for any worthwhile follow-up action the European Parliament may place before the Commission as a result of this report.
Unless there is international solidarity and the political will to change the way the prevailing gross imbalance in the burden of illegal immigration is handled across the EU as a whole, Malta, and other countries hard-hit by the problem, will continue, unfairly, to suffer the consequences. Those effects are not simply financial and economic but could also carry long-term social and security consequences, which may be unpredictable and more difficult to grapple with.