Malta’s unyielding stance against a contentious new set of European Council-imposed rules governing Frontex and where it disembarks migrants rescued at sea by its patrols was justified recently when the European Courts of Justice recently threw out a clause stipulating that rescued migrants are automatically sent to the mission’s host country, as opposed to the closest safe port of call.

For Malta, whose geographical position in the central Mediterranean makes it an ideal host country, the rules had serious ramifications. What the EU Council, despite the protestations of Malta and Italy, imposed was a reversal of the previous code of engagement, which was to bring rescued migrants to the closest safe port of call. Malta’s particular problems with the new system aside, getting traumatised people rescued from the sea makes a lot more sense from a humanitarian standpoint.

Malta’s consternation and concern were such that it had immediately withdrawn its candidature to host any future Frontex missions. This was done out of principle and concern for the fact that all Frontex-rescued migrants were being brought to Malta and under the EU’s Dublin regulations, the country in which an irregular migrant first enters the EU is the country responsible for that irregular migrant and his/her consequent asylum or deportation. Also, given the country’s automatic detention policy, the prospect was that Malta’s detention centre populations could have swelled to truly crisis proportions.

Malta can now claim justification for its unyielding stance after the ECJ declared the rule as null and void and found that the EU Council had acted beyond its powers and ordered the annulment of the new rules.

The case had been brought to the ECJ by the European Parliament after protests from Maltese European Parliamentarian Simon Busuttil. The EP had requested the court to annul the Council decision, contending that in adopting the contested decision the Council had exceeded its implementing powers by adopting additional measures governing border surveillance.

The new rules on the Schengen Borders Code in the context of Frontex missions as proposed by the Council had been approved in January 2010 by EU ministers, despite Malta and Italy having abstained from the vote in objection, and were then endorsed by the European Parliament’s plenary session when a motion challenging the rules - approved by the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee in March 2010 - was thrown out by the EP’s plenary session the next month.

The LIBE Committee continued to apply pressure on the matter, resulting in an opinion from the European Parliament’s legal services that there was a case to bring before the ECJ.

The case did not deal with the substantive element of the rules, that such rules were required to save lives at sea – an issue that no one could dispute – but rather with the procedural aspect, where the parliament argued that the European Council had exceeded its implementing powers provided by the Schengen Borders Code when tabling the rules.

Basically, the rules had been presented much in the same way as a legal notice is published in Malta, without the possibility of the European Parliament being able to table and make amendments to them and they, rightly so, insisted that the rules should have been run through the regular legislative procedure that gives Parliament the possibility to have its say.

If that had been the case, it could be argued, the controversial clause could have been amended to the agreement of all MEPs, as well as to Malta’s satisfaction, which, it is believed, had only found serious fault with that one particular clause.

Now that the migration phenomenon has subsided, at least for the time being, it is time for the EU to focus on having the right systems in place with which member states, Malta included, will be able to face a crisis like we had witnessed in the second half of the last decade.

Malta, meanwhile, needs to focus on the proper integration of those it has taken in so far, lest such communities run the risk of becoming marginalised and ghettoised. There are several initiatives in progress along such lines, but more, much more, certainly needs to be done.