Maltese and Italian politicians should sit around a table to discuss the migration crisis rather than lash out at each other on Twitter, former foreign affairs ministers have urged.
Both former ministers Tonio Borg and George Vella told The Sunday Times of Malta that the solution to rising tensions between Malta and Italy would be found by settling on a united position on the migration problem.
Italy apologised after Malta’s Ambassador Vanessa Frazier was insulted online by an Italian policeman.“You don’t find an answer to something as complex as this by Tweeting. That is not how these things are done. You have to come together, sit around a table and discuss,” said Dr Vella, who headed the Foreign Affairs Ministry during the 1996 Sant administration and again between 2013 and 2017.
He was referring to a series of social media exchanges between Maltese and Italian politicians in recent weeks, over who should be responsible for migrants rescued at sea.
Of late, Malta and Italy have regularly locked horns over who should bear responsibility for the hundreds of migrants routinely picked up from rickety boats and overcrowded dinghies.
Rarely a week has passed this summer without the two traditional allies quarrelling over who should take in a boatload of migrants rescued somewhere in the waters between Italy, Malta and North Africa.
The issue revolves around two different international laws which the two countries have adopted, that set out when a country is responsible for a rescue and when they should offer a safe harbour.
The best solution is having a bilateral summit, which I don’t believe has happened since the new Italian government was elected
Dr Borg, who was minister between 2008 and 2012, said the position adopted by the Maltese government today was generally the same as that held by previous Nationalist administrations.
“Where I don’t agree is when [Prime Minister] Joseph Muscat decided to not let NGO rescue vessels and planes leave Malta,” he said.
Both foreign policy veterans were keen to contextualise the current state of play, saying that relations between Malta and Italy had been strained before – back in 2004 when migration had first been on the European negotiating table, and again since then.
“It is not the first time that there has been this sort of situation. But the best solution is having a bilateral summit, which I don’t believe has happened since the new Italian government was elected,” Dr Borg said.
Italy’s government had to apologise to Malta on Friday after an Italian policeman called Malta’s ambassador to Italy a “whore” on Facebook.
In a statement, the Italian embassy in Malta said that Foreign Minister Moavero Milanesi had called his Maltese counterpart Carmelo Abela to apologise for the “unspeakable” insult directed at Ambassador Vanessa Frazier.
Ambassador Frazier sparked controversy a few days ago when she told Italian reporters that “the good Lord put Italy between our island [Malta] and North Africa”, referring to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
That statement echoed a phrase Italy’s controversial home affairs minister, Matteo Salvini, had used back in June when he first announced Italy would be adopting a tough line on migration.
“The good Lord put Malta closer to African shores than Sicily,” Mr Salvini had said at the time, having apparently overlooked Lampedusa.
An Italian police officer took umbrage at Ambassador Frazier’s comments and wrote on his Facebook profile that Italy was being “taken for a ride by a woman who used to be a bar whore in Malta”.
The comment prompted a diplomatic incident and an official apology from Italy. Aside from an apology from Minister Milanesi, Italy’s ambassador to Malta Mario Sammartino also expressed solidarity with Ambassador Frazier.