Voluntary solidarity on illegal immigration and asylum was not working and Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil yesterday reiterated his call for the introduction of compulsory burden sharing.
Dr Busuttil was addressing a Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament dedicated to the state of play of negotiations among the 27 EU member states on the Asylum Package, a set of five legislative proposals dealing with migration and asylum.
Dr Busuttil, who leads the EPP group on immigration issues, described this dossier as “defining” and said the council, representing member states, should act on this package.
“This is a defining dossier, and the ball is clearly in the Council’s court... This matter is all about solidarity, and voluntary solidarity is really a joke. Some countries don’t want to help,” Dr Busuttil told MEPs.
His remarks follow last month’s announcement by the EU executive that just six member states had responded positively to the European Commission’s call for voluntary participation in an intra-EU programme designed to resettle asylum seekers stuck in Malta.
The Labour Party has long been criticising the government on the voluntary aspect of burden sharing and Dr Busuttil’s comments must sound like music to its ears.
However, when asked whether he was agreeing with Labour by calling voluntary solidarity a “joke”, Dr Busuttil said this was not the case.
“No, I am not agreeing with Labour at all... Voluntary solidarity was just a first step and it was better than nothing. But it was never a final step and we must persist until we achieve true solidarity,” he said.
“Unlike Labour, I do not point my finger at the government, which has, and is, working remarkably hard to make solidarity work, but at EU member states which are still turning a blind eye to what is happening in the Mediterranean and pretending this is not their problem. Rest assured I will keep on insisting until they get the message,” he told The Times.
During the committee’s meeting, member states were harshly criticised by other MEPs.
“I don’t want to hear about voluntary measures,” said Dutch Liberal MEP Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the rapporteur on the revision of the Dublin regulation, which determines which member state is responsible for processing an asylum application.
She said so far, the Council preferred a system for sharing this burden voluntarily with southern member states, while the EP advocated a compulsory solidarity burden-sharing mechanism.
On the revision of the reception of asylum seekers directive, which introduces stricter conditions at reception centres, Socialist Spanish rapporteur Antonio Masip-Hidalgo accused member states of not moving in their discussions despite the EP’s green light.
“Why is this proposal at a dead end in Council?” he asked. “We need to deal with this matter expeditiously.”
The Council representative present for the meeting admitted that member states were still sceptical about this directive saying: “We are far from having any common position that could be taken even to informal talks with the EP.”