Tempers flared, there were outbursts on both sides, the EC backtracked, France stated its case and Malta dodged the issue.

The issue we are talking about is European Commissioner (and the EC’s Vice President) Viviane Reding’s scathing attack on France for its deportation of Roma. Reding said that the last time anything similar had been seen was when Jews and gypsies were deported and sent to death camps in WWII.

Needless to say, France was not happy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the attack by Reding was completely undeserved and he went on to say that he had a heated exchange with EC President Jose Manuel Barroso over the issue. Mr Barroso said the Commission was behind Reding, but moved to calm the waters.

Reding herself said she was sorry about the way her comments were interpreted, but reiterated that the Commission would be investigating to establish whether France had broken the law by deporting some 2,000-odd gypsies back to Bulgaria and Romania.

But there is a local connection, and on more than one level. A spokesman for Sarkozy’s UMP party said France would not be taking lessons on morality from someone (Reding) who represents 350,000 people from Luxembourg. The comment reinforces the perception that while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others within the European Union. Sarkozy himself later suggested that if Luxembourg wanted to, it could take the travellers itself. This is a very dark and loaded comment.

But on the other hand, France argues that a plane ticket home and a small allowance to reintegrate in Romania cannot be compared to the death trains and death camps which were set up by the Nazis, and in this they are correct.

One must also note that most countries in the world (even Europe and Malta) have laws whereby people who do not have the means to sustain themselves and do not seek to are deemed to be committing a criminal offence.

Asked to comment, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi spoke in Brussels and was rather non-committal. He said that Malta will await the Commission’s findings before saying more. The same can be said of Italy’s Berlusconi. Many might argue that the reason for this is that Italy negotiated a deal with Libya whereby immigrants are pushed back by Italian and Libyan patrols. Malta, of course, benefits from a reduction in arrivals. This has proven to be controversial with many rights groups saying that these migrants are facing horrific conditions once they are returned to Libya. The PM, meanwhile, has stepped up the ante by pushing Europe for stricter implementation of the Cotonou Treaty whereby migrants who have no right to asylum can be sent back to their country of origin if that country is a beneficiary of EU development aid (not humanitarian aid). Italy is also on the same tack. But perhaps the lack of a stand by the government of Malta could be linked to something which happened in the not too distant past. Perhaps it was more to do with memories of Eritrean immigrants who were all frog marched to court from the depot in Floriana, handcuffed. They were declared to be illegal and a grand total of 232 were then sent back to Eritrea in different batches. This did not happen in 1970. It happened in 2002. Those who survived the forced labour camps on their return told stories of deaths by starvation, beatings and torture. While today is a different story, perhaps that is why the government chose silence. Perhaps the government has merely forgotten about what happened in 2002. The PL also stated yesterday that national security should be the priority when dealing with immigration.

Whatever the case may be, more than 60 years after the fall of the Nazi regime, we are still living in Fortress Europe. Immigration is a problem and most people will tell you that they would rather ‘ignore’ the pushback patrols. But we must face up to the fact that although we have cleaned up our act, we have sinned in the past and we continue to do so today. It seems to be very much a case of ‘see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil’.