The fact that the government has retained as a consultant a man who breached the EU’s code of ethics will weaken the country’s position with the Union when it comes to negotiations on immigration, PN leader Simon Busuttil said this morning.
Interviewed by Times of Malta’s Mark Micallef on Radio 101, Dr Busuttil said:
“When Joseph Muscat goes to negotiate with (Jose Manuel) Barroso, will he not bring this up? Will the incident strengthen Malta’s case at the EU or weaken it?”
He said that if it was acceptable for the Prime Minister to have as his consultant someone who breached the EU’s code of ethics, he had to shoulder responsibility because this was what he promised before the election.
“Who is shouldering political responsibility in this case?”
Asked whether he believed Dr Muscat should make Mr Dalli resign, Dr Busuttil replied that this was the logical conclusion.
Dr Busuttil was asked about the Auditor General’s report on the oil procurement scandal. He said responsibility for this had been shouldered by the Nationalist Party and all ministers and as a result the party was now in Opposition.
On former minister Austin Gatt specifically he said he could not make someone who was not under his authority to say or do certain things.
Had he been in his shoes, he said, he would speak to journalists but he could not make Dr Gatt do the same.
Dr Busuttil insisted that the Nationalist Party had acted on the matter in the midst of an electoral campaign and its actions led to the arraignment of a number of people.
He hoped that the Auditor’s Report would also be discussed in Parliament and said he would call a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee to discuss it in detail.
There were still questions he needed answered, such as did the Auditor General speak to Dr Gatt and the former Enemalta chairman?
Dr Busuttil justified the previous government’s decision not to go for a gas operated power station immediately on the price of oil, which had been much lower at the time.
Dr Busuttil also spoke on immigration insisting he was against pushbacks as people had to be given the right to apply for asylum.
When it was pointed out to him that when in 2009 the Italian government was pushing back boats to Libya, the Maltese government had given Italy tacit support, he insisted that he did not want his country to push back people to a country which could be unsafe for them.
Dr Busuttil said the agreement between Italy and Libya was good because it was on cooperation between the two countries, including on immigration for people not to leave Libya.
In the year 2009, he said, a record number of people had drowned in the Mediterranean so it was good for people not to leave Libya for such drownings to be reduced.
Following Italy’s pushbacks, he said, there was a European Court judgement saying this was a breach of human rights. The PN, he said, had never spoken in favour of Italy’s pushback. The party’s immigration policy was very fair but strict.
He said that an agreement on migration that would not include pushbacks should be reached between the EU and Libya.
On conditions at detention centres, he said he was not pleased with them and noted he had said this even when he was an MEP.
However, he said, things had to be kept in perspective and one could not expect conditions not to suffer in places aimed at housing 200 people and having to take in 1,000 because of an influx.
Malta had a big burden to carry and everything had to be seen in context.
He said he did not agree that the country’s 18-month detention policy should be changed because it was in line with EU law. He noted that even though 18 months was the maximum, immigrants usually only stayed in detention for six.
Dr Busuttil said that in 10 years of Nationalist administration, 16,000 immigrants had arrived and 3,000 to 5,000 remained. Some 2,000 were resettled, thousands were deported after their claim for asylum was refused and others escaped. Those who were caught were sent back but many others were not.
So the previous government had managed the situation very well. It could do this only with the help it had received from the EU and to say that the PN administration and the EU did not do anything on the matter was wrong and unfair.
Dr Busuttil said that with his pushback claim, Dr Muscat had destroyed Malta's reputation in European institutions.
“I know what I’m saying. I had and still have contacts,” he said adding that the decision was immature and senseless. Dr Muscat, he said, had created alarm and social unrest among the Maltese as well as a sense of xenophobia.