This summer’s events in the Mediterranean demonstrated without any doubt that regarding irregular migration, the EU remains divided without any clear and satisfactory common policy. Fortunately, the number of people coming through North Africa has not been (up to now) as great as was originally feared, for otherwise more deaths would have happened.

At present, we are in a situation where whenever a big boat approaches, crammed with refugees and likely to soon capsize, multilateral negotiations need to be held within the Union but outside its structures.

Efforts made by NGOs to “save” immigrants from drowning have probably made things worse. There is some justification in the charge that they have been serving as a prop for people traffickers.

Meanwhile on this matter, Malta and Italy are no longer on the same page, but one could say this for most other EU members. All seem to be on the page where while spouting rhetorical pieties, they only consider the national interest... as understood by electorates.

All are worried that the worst tragedy would not be the loss at sea of hundredsmore lives, but that of hundred thousands more votes.

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Meritocracy

I was struck by a line of argument I heard recently.

During the first phase of its administration, the Labour government needed to ensure that those placed in leading decisional roles nationally would be persons of trust. Otherwise, quite soon people in charge would be ready to torpedo its initiatives. The aim of preventing this was achieved.

On this basis, the time is approaching... perhaps it already has arrived... when the government needs to increasingly promote the norms of meritocracy. People get chosen to do things according to their ability and their readiness to use it without hesitation according to the demands of duty and technical or professional good practice. In a situation where nobody feels that he or she has been placed at an unfair disadvantage when appointments are made, those given such an appointment will conduct their tasks without fear or favour... which is the main merit of meritocracy!

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Murder of storks

(With apologies to Walid Nabhan) The exodus of storks from Malta is being less than smooth. Instead of being allowed to leave in peace, the storks are being murdered.

The claim that seems to have been advanced is that these killings were provoked by the decisions of the European Court of Justice with respect to hunting and trapping. It has also been claimed that for the same reason, some people keep back from giving information about how the murders were carried out. Such arguments are rotten to the core and hugely damage the cause of hunters and trappers.

A man who was angry like hell stopped me in the middle of the road. He was not some youthful Birdlife volunteer – to the contrary, I had always considered him as a hunter. He admitted that there were times when he was. But: Why are you going to allow them to carry on with these abuses? he urged. What we need aren’t just fines, but prison sentences.

I explained how I am not one of those with the power to allow or to prevent; or to judge about fines and prison.

Even so, I got his point. There can be no guarantee that another referendum about hunting and trapping will have the same outcome as the last one. In the circumstances....