Prime Minister Joseph Muscat criticised Italy’s deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Sunday morning, saying “politics is not done by tweets but through persuasion”.
Dr Muscat made this remark in the wake of the ongoing stand-off involving a group of 137 migrants which are not being allowed to disembark at the port of Catania after being intercepted by the Italian navy vessel Diciotti.
Italy is insisting that it will not budge from its position until EU members states agree to share the migrants among themselves. Thirteen of the 150 people brought to Catania by the Italian navy were taken ashore on Saturday on doctors’ orders due to concerns about their health.
Interviewed on One Radio, the Prime Minister said that this incident was testament to the fact that the hard line approach on migration being advocated in certain quarters would lead to nowhere.
A sick man is escorted off the Diciotti vessel on Saturday evening. Photo: Reuters“The lesson from this standoff is that solutions do not depend on the size of the country or the number of tweets but through persuasion. Malta faced much more complicated cases, but managed to find solidarity from other member states as well as political solutions for cases which were not within its responsibility,” Dr Muscat said.
The Prime Minister defended Malta’s conduct in the latest spat with Italy, saying that prior of being intercepted by the Diciotti, the migrants had not asked for assistance when crossing international waters under Malta’s jurisdiction.
He added that in recent incidents involving NGO vessels Aquarius and the Lifeline, Malta managed to convince other EU countries to take some of these migrants.
However, the Prime Minister warned that he would not allow a free-for-all situation while sounding a warning to NGOs operating rescue ships.
“You cannot have vessels going in Libyan waters as if it was a race against time not to allow the Libyan coast guard do its job,” he said. NGOs also needed to obey international regulations, Dr Muscat said.
Dr Muscat also commented on the hard line approach being taken by Eastern European countries who have erected a fence at their borders.
“As far as I know there is no technology yet to do such thing in the sea. Had we been like Luxembourg, we could have had a discussion whether to adopt such measure or not,” he said.
Nonetheless, this would not exonerate Malta from its responsibility to rescue people in distress within its international waters, he added.
The Prime Minister noted that migration would be on the agenda of a forthcoming meeting with his Czech counterpart Andrej Babis despite the fact that their respective position on the matter was “miles apart”.