Prime Minister Robert Abela has said that the key principle behind any solution for solving the Mediterranean migration issue must start from stopping people from leaving Africa.

Speaking in a radio interview on party media on Sunday, Abela described migration as a “big challenge” which is being experienced by the whole continent, but especially countries like Malta, Italy and Greece – in whose case he referred to the latest migrant tragedy which saw a fishing trawler sink with over 500 migrants still lost at sea as a result.

He said that he has consistently sent a message on the pressures that migration is creating on the whole continent to the European Union as a whole, and added that because he has been persistent, this topic has come onto the European agenda more and more.

He said that there must be coordinated and dedicated action in order to fight the migration phenomenon, which is perpetuated by organised criminals in North Africa.

This week’s tragedy in Greece is an example, he said, of how these criminals prey on the most vulnerable and send them into situations which may lead to them perishing at sea.

He said that Malta’s sacrosanct principle is to save lives, even if it is rejecting significant arrivals.

He added that the problem is too great for any single country to face alone, and said that there also needs to be an understanding that countries in North Africa are also impacted by this and need to be part of the solution.

In this sense, he said, that chief principle behind any solution should be to “prevent arrivals” – something which starts at the point of departure in North Africa.

He said that these countries are also victims because they are transition countries, adding that we don’t just need action plans along their coastlines but also action plans along the borders of their own countries to stop people crossing there.

Europe also needs to speak about economic relations and investments in African countries, particularly where people are leaving from.

“We need to offer hope and opportunity for investment for the people living there,” Abela said, adding that there is a dual benefit to this: increased economic possibilities will mean that less people will leave, and there are many sectors – such as the energy one – where it pays Europe to invest.

“We cannot solve this with discussions and speeches about visions.  I don’t want to see hundreds lose their lives… it makes me cry because the solutions exist,” he said.

Abela spoke about discussions he partook in with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying that Malta’s relationship with Italy has always been strong but that now it is time to take them to the next level.

He spoke about the common positions Malta has with Italy in the energy sector, latching in topics such as the recent Med9 summit where Energy Ministers from across the European side of the Mediterranean agreed at the basin should become a hub for clean energy.

Here, Abela said that he discussed with Meloni the need to include North African countries such as Libya and Tunisia – thereby placing Malta as a bridge between the two continents – to create clean energy corridors.

The Prime Minister also said that Meloni promised that there would be “no hiccups” for the setting up of a second interconnector between Malta and Ragusa in Sicily by 2026.

On sports meanwhile, days after Abela announced another investment of €5 million from the National Social Development Fund following Malta’s record display at the Games of the Small States of Europe, the Prime Minister said that the starting point is a “change in culture” when it comes to sport.

He said that he wants sports to be in everybody’s lives and that a discussion was held this past week at Cabinet level on plans to increase the inclusion of sports in the education sector.

He said that in this sense, the government needs to be ambitious and create a system to encourage professional sports, rather than remaining with the current status quo which requires athletes to be training at 5am in order to keep up with their educations.

Meanwhile, recent statistics showed that the number of people who are at risk of being in poverty has decreased, with Abela saying that this gives him courage to work even more with renewed enthusiasm.

“It is only a government with socialist principles like ours which we can even recognise that this reality exists, and then combat it,” Abela said of people being in poverty.

He said that the reduction in poverty levels is the fruit of the government’s strategy to absorb economic burdens itself rather than placing them on the people’s shoulders.

He noted that before 2013, 25% of Maltese families could not afford having an unexpected financial expense – while today that rate has dropped to 15%, less than half the European average of 32%.

“Does that mean we have to stop there? No, this gives us more motivation to address those remaining 15%,” he said.

Asked about the country’s “economic transition,” Abela said that this can be defined as being one of quality.

He spoke primarily about the recent expansion of ST Microelectronics in Malta and about a recently opened WasteServ facility to turn waste into a resource in Hal-Far as examples of this, saying that such investments will continue to put Malta on the map and create quality jobs and bring quality investment.