Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said this morning that despite its best intentions, Malta would never be in a position to successfully integrate more than a very small number of legally residing third-country nationals.
Speaking at a UNHCR conference on the integration of refugees in Malta, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said that future policy development would require that all those who offered mainstream services to migrants enjoying protection would clarify the exact nature of the rights and entitlements of those holding this status.
“Our society needs to come to a stage, precisely because of the need to seriously adopt the ‘integration is a two-way process’ policy principle, where newcomers to our society are enabled to participate in it and contribute to it by making it clear what they can be expected to receive and what not, and what they are expected to contribute and what not.
“It would no longer be acceptable for those offering private or public services to tell anyone that he is not entitled to a service because of the lurking suspicion or prejudice that a black person cannot be entitled to anything.
“Likewise, it would no longer be acceptable for someone to remain for excessive lengths of time in a reception centre at the public’s cost, when that person is expected to start contributing to society as soon as possible. To implement this goal, all services, state or public, need to be ‘integration-friendly.’ This is the next stage, where we need to get to in the next few years,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.
The minister said that between 2002 and 2007 around 8,880 irregular immigrants reached the Maltese islands.
“In these difficult circumstances, both for the persons arriving themselves and for the authorities, Malta’s commitment to protection for those entitled to it is amply manifested by the data: we have granted protection to slightly less than half of asylum applicants who requested protection in the period between 1st January 2002 and 31st December 2007. In real numbers, of the 5,337 asylum applications submitted during this period, involving 5,856 persons, 193 persons have been awarded refugee status and 2,625 have been granted humanitarian protection whilst there were 2,278 rejections.”
“Notwithstanding our best desires, Malta will never be in a position to successfully integrate more than a very small number of legally residing third-country nationals. Since we are carrying a disproportionate share of the burden at the beginning of the process of asylum, this should be granted to Malta, and hence the need for continuing all our efforts to return and resettle, depending on status,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.