Migration issues were top of the agenda during a meeting held today in Castille between Prime Minister Robert Abela and European Commissioner of Home Affairs Ylva Johansson.

In his opening address, Abela said that Malta has been facing increasing difficulties with regular arrivals of migrants. So far this year, more than 1,000 migrants arrived in Malta, a worrying number when compared to the total of 3,400 migrants who came to Malta throughout the whole of 2019.

He believes that this is a problem which is even more worrying considering Malta’s small size.

He said that discussions on migration should focus on three main dimensions: communication with countries of origin, improvement of boarder surveillance and finding international solutions that show that we have learnt our lesson from measures that didn’t work.

“This is not a regional but EU problem. Unfortunately, discussions on solidarity and risk of disparity between member states seem to stop when discussing the regular migration issue and member states like Malta are left to themselves to solve this problem.”

“We can no longer accept that no concrete action is taken,” he stated while pointing out that Malta’s reception centres are almost full.

Ylva Johansson said that migration is an issue which needs to be tackled together. It is possible to manage migration, it is a normal thing; it has always been there and always will be. Our task is to manage and control it, he said.

Johnasson said that one of the approaches she is taking to tackle this situation is to reach all member states and discuss a way forward and a compromise. She has already met up with 27 member states and she is more optimistic now than she was at the start of the dialogues.

“What we need to do is to regain trust between member states as we are losing trust between each other with regards to migration and we are paying a high price for that. We need to treat migration as a normal policy area to de-escalate and become more pragmatic in out solutions.”

She explained that different member states are having different geographical realities not only in the area of migration.

“We used to be able to compromise and support those states that are in a difficult situation than others as we have different tools to help each other.

“This is my aim and this is what we are going to speak about with regards to the common proposal and of course I have a very strong mandate from the president so this is how I will find a way forward with other member states which is difficult but in my view it is possible.”

The press were only allowed for the first part of the meeting.