I continue to marvel at the naivety of some of the customs and immigration authorities within the European Union and, within the same breath, at the ensuing efficiency and alertness of ours. Being frightfully subjective and, possibly, even a trifle jingoistic? Indeed.

There have been so many cases of migrants flying and sailing to Malta from places like Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus on false documents that one begins to wonder whether the usual airport and seaport checkpoints really give a hoot about who leaves their shores or not. The very fact that on entering Malta and going through customs and immigration channels they are swiftly detected and taken in for interrogation and eventual arraignment shows that someone somewhere has not done his job well enough. And when such episodes occur, which I hasten to add often create heart-wrenching situations for our authorities, do customs and immigration officers exchange messages, perhaps with a few transnational expletives in between?

Seriously, I do not expect our officers to get in touch with their overseas counterparts , who hours before had just waved out of their sight the poor migrants, to give them an unpleasant piece of their mind. No, EU people are nice with each other. But immediate contact, I assume, would help to avoid similar occurrences; though occurrences there have been far too many.

Only last week, eight migrants were each jailed six months on Maltese taxpayer money, after entering the Island on false documents. They came in from Italy where customs and immigration officers must have still been celebrating their Euro 2020 success to be able to notice eight obvious migrants carrying eight glaringly false documents and boarding an aeroplane bound for Malta. So fake were their documents that they admitted to the Police that they had purchased the lot for €900, a sum they probably could ill-afford. When they were arraigned in court, each one of the migrants inevitably admitted the charges.

What happens next? Six months on, will the migrants be sent back to Italy or does it not make more sense to send them back immediately on detection and so avoid the physical and mental hardship on the migrants (there have been, over the years, cases involving children and pregnant women) imposed by the burden of spending time inside a prison already seething from over-crowding? I am sure there are procedures, but the public is never kept informed, though we should bear in mind that migrants are not cattle stock but real human beings like the rest of us, and who, also like the rest of us have been doing all our lives, are merely seeking to have a better life. Being bundled from one airport to another like an unwanted ball is both unjust and humiliating.

It all boils down to one thing – haphazard and laissez-faire attitudes at customs and immigration channels will only lead to more human suffering. Indeed, controls need to be kept and meritocracy as regards the granting of asylum is also a prerequisite given the huge numbers of migrants who originate from established safe and economically sound places. The rest have to be regarded with respect and concern and not find themselves being shoved into jails and treated like compulsive criminals and murderers, some of whom have lately and inexplicably become the darlings of a section of the Maltese media by way of scoring political points.

 

You’re in the army now

Every time some EU high official or MEP upstart starts talking about a European army or some other unified military force, one can hardly ignore the red light that switches on in the Maltese psyche. At least most Maltese, for we’ve had our fair share of sycophants throughout our rugged history. Inscribed into our Constitution is the status of neutrality, an obvious consequence of the tragedies, destruction and loss of innocent human life Malta had to endure under the rule of foreign nations fighting other foreign nations.

The Maltese are not, as far as I know, the only objectors to some kind of European army. National armies are still regarded as the safest bet in a world in turmoil, but there is also the belief that being truckloaded into wars and dangerous campaigns in forlorn places on the globe is not every nation’s cup of tea. Some of them, of course, give in, particularly to American pressures, but only do so under their own flags. You had to laugh out loud at President Biden’s statement last Monday “the US will no longer be the world’s policeman”. I guess there are always the drones to hit more innocent victims.

But back to the European army narrative. The latest call for “an initial entry force” of 5,000 troops from EU countries for the bloc “to be better prepared for future emergencies after the crisis in Afghanistan” came from none other than the EU high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, during an interview with the Italian paper Corriere della Sera. Borrell insisted, the chuckling begins again, that “the US is not willing to fight for other people’s wars anymore”. Does this show a shift in EU-US foreign security matters or will things start happening by proxy?

Borrell’s proposal of an “initial entry force” (entry into where, one is inclined to ask, a sort of invasion, military intervention wherever the West deems needing salvation?) is made on the assumption that “as Europeans, we should be able to do things on our own”.

So here, suddenly, we have a super power playing Pilate, and an acknowledgely divided European continent seeking to fill in the void. To put it in one of the most beautiful of EU official languages, mingħajrna, grazzi.