“It is unacceptable that other European Member States are building walls while leaving countries like Malta and Italy to face the realities of migration alone,” Labour Member of the European Parliament Cyrus Engerer said on Wednesday.

While addressing a conference in Alcamo, Sicily, he emphasised that building walls within the European Union is not the solution to the migration phenomenon.

“The building of walls across Europe is resulting in the establishment of nee routes for migrants. Instead of building walls, the European Union needs to implement a common immigration policy that removes the onus of migration from front line Member States, gives dignity to people seeking asylum and reflects the demographics that currently exist across the European Union” said Engerer.

In his intervention, Engerer emphasised that the south of Europe cannot and should not build walls, as this will lead to more asylum seeker deaths in the Mediterranean.

“I am from Malta, we are currently in Sicily and we have just spent two days in Lampedusa where we saw first-hand, the realities faced by that island. All of us who live in Europe’s southern islands know all too well that we have an obligation to save lives. Nevertheless the rest of the European Union has an obligation of solidarity by taking responsibility for both the challenges and opportunities of immigration” concluded Engerer.

The reality is that in the European Institutions, it is the right wing parties, including the European People’s Party of which the Nationalist Party is a part, who continue to insist that migration is a challenge that must be faced solely by Europe’s southern states.

Cyrus Engerer was participating in a conference entitled "At Europe's doors", organised by Member of the European Parliament from Lampedusa Pietro Bartolo and participated together with Spanish MEP Domenec Ruiz Deveza and Dutch MEP Thijs Reuten.