The government is fully committed to ensuring that, as host member state of the European Asylum Support Office, it provides the best possible conditions for its proper functioning, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

Speaking at the first EASO management board meeting at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Dr Gonzi said the government has offered a state-of-the-art building that is close to the island’s administrative and commercial centre for the Support Office to use as its premises.

“As you are aware, Malta boasts a highly trained and flexible multilingual workforce, an efficient international transport network, an excellent ICT infrastructure as well as well-established educational institutions, quality health care services and a wide range of support services,” he added.

It has been almost a year since unanimous agreement was reached in the Justice and Home Affairs Council to establish the Seat of the European Asylum Support Office in Malta. That agreement, on 1 December 2009, constituted a major achievement for Malta. For the first time since it acceded to the European Union in 2004, member states decided to locate a European Union agency in Malta.

“Since joining the European Union in 2004, Malta has been instrumental in raising the profile of migration and asylum issues on the European Union’s agenda. This is due to the first-hand experience the country has gained of the challenges presented by migration and asylum as a result of the increasing migration pressures faced over the past few years,” Dr Gonzi said.

In 2008, and again in 2009, Malta received the largest number of asylum applications as a proportion of population among the 27 member states. Furthermore, due to the country of origin of the applicants that arrive here, Malta is providing a refuge for a disproportionately large number of beneficiaries of international protection in relation to the country’s size. “This is why we continue to work to persuade member states which can provide a future for these internationally protected people to do so. Malta certainly cannot,” the PM said.

The Support Office has the primary task of working with national asylum authorities to coordinate the provision of operational support to member states that are subject to particular pressures on their asylum and reception systems. This is a clear message that the European Union is determined to, directly and effectively, implement solutions to manage the asylum phenomenon, and ensure that adequate international protection is provided to those who need it, while at the same time combating abuse.

It is a clear message that the European Union is willing to address the realities in the field of asylum. “We now need to ensure that this message reaches the Union’s citizens. Our citizens need to know that the Union is doing its utmost to deliver on its policies and reach out to the member states that need help. It is only when our citizens are able to identify exactly what the Union is doing in each and every area that our decisions and actions at the EU level can be justified. This is, after all, the principal objective of the Stockholm Programme, the five-year plan that we have for the area of Freedom, Security and Justice: a Europe that is open yet secure, a Europe that aims to serve and protect its citizens,” Dr Gonzi said.