Traditionally, with the advent of summer, political issues are put on the backburner and give way to village and town festas and relaxation on the beach. For some years, this has not been the full story of a Maltese summer, since apart from holidays and merry-making, June, July and August also witness the landing of small boats filled with would-be migrants seeking a better future in Europe. Malta and Gozo are over-populated islands and unfortunately cannot possibly accommodate these would-be migrants in this country. So, although we assume responsibility for these people saved at sea on humanitarian grounds, we look forward to an early resolution of this problem by the institutions of the European Union, after their mandate is renewed following the EP elections later on this month.

The reason for this human traffic is the disparity in social conditions prevalent in the developing world when compared to that enjoyed in advanced countries. The “western” world intelligentsia and political parties have over the past century revolutionised the political science by which these countries are governed, by applying the concept of workers’ full civil rights – as a result of the granting of citizenship. The establishment of this principle has opened the way to the ending of discrimination and persecution in society based on sex, gender, age, race or religious affiliation. Another important innovation is the welfare state or welfare society that has become the accepted norm in advanced countries, although still being contested in several regions of the developing world in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Due to pressure from several lobby groups, workers in several countries of the developing world are still subject to precarious economic conditions which were prevalent in Europe in the 19th century and are subject to political discrimination prohibited in advanced countries. In the advanced countries of Europe, North America, Australasia and the Far East, workers have belonged to trade unions and in political parties for decades. Consequently, they can obtain benefits that were beyond the dreams of their forefathers centuries ago. Housing estates have been built to cater for the needs of workers’ families and social services have been introduced like social security, education for all and generalised health care, making up a welfare system fitting the dignity of man. Alas, this state of affairs is now being challenged and changed for the worse even in advanced countries with the introduction of precarious work on a much larger scale than hitherto. 

The disparity in social conditions between the advanced and developing countries has become more evident with the spread of the communication media – cinema, radio and television and lately by computers and mobile phones which make the situation for workers in the developing countries intolerable and difficult to bear. Thus, since travel – even inter-continental travel – has become commonplace, workers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are on the move in their hundreds of thousands, if not in millions, as economic migrants. Apart from these economic migrants, there are those who, because they have been engaged in political struggle, are forced to leave their countries as political refugees. Internal contradictions in individual countries have become international problems with the movement of capital, goods, services and labour across continents on a level not seen before.

In our case, as Maltese, this affects us in two ways. First, it makes our membership of the European Union a necessity since our country is too small to face such problems on our own. In the second case, since we are on the frontier of Europe we are affected disproportionately to our size by the numbers of migrants landing on our shores. Thus, it should be clear to one and all that all those migrants who do not qualify for refugee or humanitarian assistance are to be repatriated to their country of origin. The European Union should provide us with the necessary assistance, so that we can complete this process in a speedy and humanitarian manner, so that all the economic migrants landing on our shores can be sent back to their country of origin and Malta would only have to domicile the refugees and those migrants who qualify for humanitarian assistance on a quota basis commensurate with our population. Integrating these with the local population will in the course of time enable these newly-arrived to benefit from travel arrangements, possible to the Maltese, within the European Union. The most important factor is that we understand the rules that we need to follow and act transparently and that the Internal Rules of the EU – in particular Dublin 2 are changed as promised to the Maltese public by the two main contenders to the  post of President of the European Union during their recent visits to Malta.

Mario Mifsud     

Hamrun