Being in total agreement with PL leader Joseph Muscat that immigration, jobs and energy are three of the uppermost priorities of a future PL government, it pains me to see Malta humiliated and made to eat humble pie in international fora – particularly within the EU itself on the immigration issue.
This gut reaction is neither fuelled by any populist sentiments, anti-racism or else by any anti-EU feelings. It is merely triggered by the fact that during a delicate and sensitive moment of truth EU member states chose to show so much disregard for the intra union solidarity that they claim to champion and believe in.
Bearing in mind that the EU consists of so many member states it pains me to realise that all that they could muster was a total commitment to resettle 323 asylum seekers, when the US which does not form part of the union has shown so much more generosity and solidarity on its part with Malta over the past few years. If my memory serves me well they must have taken some 600 refugees from Malta since the 2008 accord. Twice the EU level!
Recalling that some 1,000 asylum seekers found themselves in Malta due to the Libyan conflict in the past weeks, the last week’s pledges merely add insult to injury.
We have been arguing all along that one of our biggest strategic and tactical mistakes was to actually sign up to the European Immigration Pact which has proved to be worthless.
All our efforts to see the emergency solidarity mechanism triggered into action have long fallen on deaf ears.
Not only did most of the ‘positive’ respondents resort to mere tokenism, but certain big countries and major players within the EU stood out by not even bothering to commit themselves or pledge to take on one single asylum seeker.
Although Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi described his UK meeting with Cameron as positive – a stock in trade cliché invariably used also by his predecessor whenever he met any other country’s Premier or President on any issue – from the media reports that instantly filtered in, it was evident that Gonzi’s pleading was bound to be ignored.
All this in spite of the pro-government media boasts that migration topped the agenda of his Cameron meeting, which came ahead of last week’s EU pledging conference specially convened for Malta on the margins of an extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting.
Although I have no doubt that our Prime Minister presented Malta’s case to his British counterpart as best as he could, one could easily tell that his attempts came a cropper when during an address to the media after the 45-minute meeting, Dr Gonzi was reported to have confirmed that Mr Cameron did not commit himself to any number but merely underlined the UK’s commitment to ‘support’ the island. How was never quantified or spelt out.
While Gonzi stuck to his by now traditional way of raising expectations by stating that he had told Mr Cameron that Malta ‘expects’ support from the UK and other EU states to help deal with the migration crisis because this is a European problem, one cannot easily ignore or forget that the UK had merely taken 10 migrants from Malta under the migrant burden sharing pilot project two years ago.
The cat was let out of the bag by British Foreign Secretary William Hague when he chose to earlier lift the lid on the UK’s stand during a press briefing soon after meeting Dr Gonzi.
He was reported to have said that while Britain recognised migration was a serious problem for Malta which had ‘unique issues’ he went on to add that his country too had ‘its own difficulties.’
One must bear in mind that these dry comments came in reply to questions asked as to whether Britain was prepared to submit its pledge to take in migrants from Malta at the conference due to be held the day after.
This contrasts sharply with the thanks that Mr Cameron showered upon us for our assistance in evacuating British nationals from Libya.
What pains me even more is that certain local analysts, rather than taking these EU member states to task for being so cold and indifferent towards our cause, hinted in no uncertain terms, that one could easily understand such a negative reaction since Malta held back from going that extra mile to be more supportive of the coalition’s military intervention regarding the blood letting goings on in Libya.
Although the 323 figure is nothing but a pittance, it seems that both Malta and the EU as an institution had to lobby hard to even achieve such an ultra modest figure.
On the day of the conference, reports were still filtering in that sources close to the Commission had spent the last few days contacting member states ‘personally’, and encouraging them to make ‘concrete’ and ‘significant’ pledges to relocate Maltese asylum seekers in their countries.
An EU official had even been reported by another local daily that the EU had made an extra effort over the past few days and they were hopeful member states will respond positively.
With the EU having on its part stubbornly refused our call to trigger the solidarity mechanism under the existing temporary protection directive because to their mind the situation in Malta had not yet reached the cataclysmic proportions as had happened in Europe after the Albanian and Kosovo crisis, one could easily tell that the dice was loaded against us from day one – no matter how ‘hard’ the EU executive might have eventually tried to extend the Maltese project and claim to have made a sustained effort to encourage member states to participate.
Initial reports had suggested that the 323 figure stood at a mere 150 until a few hours before the conference – an average of less than six asylum seekers per member state!
Rather than lobbying hard and exercising pressure where it could be really felt, government sources had merely confirmed that although according to them it was evident that a genuine effort was being made by the EU to help Malta, more pledges were needed because the numbers were still on the low side.
One could not help noticing that some large countries such as the UK, France and Spain even refrained and shied back from making any pledges at all.
When our Home Affairs Minister went on record first refraining from saying whether he was disappointed or not with the pledges made, only to add that he had seen a positive reaction from countries that have been traditionally very sceptical, one instantly recalls the Italian expression that chi si contenta gode! The following day he regaled us with some other ‘words of wisdom’ – mainly that although we did not secure a lot of pledges it was a first good step only to put the hollow words of bravery that ‘Malta will persevere’.
One must also bear in mind that these are not actual commitments but mere pledges.
Many international aid conferences had numerous pledges that even failed to materialise or come on stream.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change