Former Prime Minister and Head of the Maltese S&D Delegation at the European Parliament Alfred Sant has condemned any abuse of the human rights of immigrants and deplored the deaths of irregular immigrants trying to enter Europe.

However, he stressed that in this regard the chief problem is that "EU policymakers lack solutions that apply for all of Europe." Furthermore, Sant questioned if the EU is putting forth enough effort to combat human trafficking across the Mediterranean.

He delivered a statement reacting to the plenary debate on pushbacks at the EU's external border, that was held following an article published this October by Lighthouse Reports that exposed a campaign of illicit and brutal pushbacks in Croatia, Greece and Romania.

Sant said that the EU's external border regions, particularly islands, have been badly affected by a crisis in tourism, adding that the sharp increase in energy and transport prices made matters worse.

"Meanwhile, despite the large and endless number of migrants over the last two decades, the EU did not come up with coherent, longterm support to help those countries worst hit by the bursts of irregular migration." Nonetheless, Sant highlighted that this was no excuse to abandon migrants trying to cross over towards the European Continent.

The Labour MEP emphasized that the EU should make a clean breast on its efforts to combat human trafficking across the Mediterranean in order to avoid more migrants being pushed to the brink of desperation, so he queried "Is Europe turning a blind eye to this ghastly criminal activity?"