The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is willing to offer the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security support during Malta’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2017, by providing legal advice and technical data, as well as through the organisation of specific joint events. One such event will centre around the presentation of the outcome of a study that the FRA is currently undertaking on the detention of immigrant children. The research covers children in asylum, or in immigration or return procedures, in all EU Member States. It focuses on detention conditions, covering such issues as access to health and education, monitoring of detention facilities, and ensuring children’s wellbeing.

Collaboration between the Maltese government and the FRA during the EU Presidency, as well as the migration crisis, were the main topics of discussion during a courtesy visit that FRA Director, Prof. Michael O’Flaherty, paid to Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela yesterday.

Prof. O’Flaherty presented the Minister with a document containing the outcome of a Fundamental Rights Forum that the FRA convened in Vienna between the 20th and the 23rd of June 2016 under the theme "Rights, Respect, Reality: the Europe of Values in Today's World". He said that, with the participation of over 700 leading experts from around the world, this was the largest fundamental rights conference ever to be organised. The outcome contains around 100 practical ideas to address the EU’s pressing fundamental rights concerns. Roughly 50% of these ideas are related, directly or indirectly, to asylum and refugee issues.

Minister Abela thanked Prof. O’Flaherty for his willingness to put the FRA’s services at the Maltese government’s disposal during the Presidency of the Council of the EU. He explained that the reform that the Government has carried out in respect of Malta’s reception system for irregular migrants and asylum seekers was informed by humanitarian concerns, apart from national security considerations. The reform in question is set out in a published document titled ‘Strategy for the Reception of Asylum Seekers and Irregular Migrants’, which was finalised following consultations with the stakeholders in the sector, including NGOs.  The document reviewed Malta’s detention policy as well as other matters relating to the reception of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, including the establishment of a system of Initial Reception.

The Minister forecasted that, due to the divergence of opinions among EU Member States, it will not be easy for the Maltese EU Presidency to reach a consensus on certain European legislative proposals that are currently on the table in a bid to address the migration crisis. Pointing out that the EU still lacks efficiency in the area of return and readmission, he said that the Communication on establishing a new Partnership Framework with third countries under the European Agenda on Migration, presented by the European Commission on the 7th of June, aims to tackle the root causes of the phenomenon and is therefore a step in the right direction. This proposal should be implemented together with the Action Plan agreed upon during last November’s Valletta Summit on Migration. The Minister expressed his concern at the increase in the number of migrant fatalities in the Mediterranean. According to the UNHCR, more than 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2016. This is a significant increase, when compared to the 1,855 in the same period last year and the 57 of the year before.