EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola believes the only solution to ensure that people no longer face death crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe is for asylum applications to be processed outside of EU territory.

During a press briefing on Tuesday ahead of the State of the Union set to take place on Wednesday, President Metsola took questions from the press. She was asked by The Malta Independent for her thoughts about the EU and its states moving towards working with Libya on migration, while there are concerns regarding the country's care of migrants, and what the EU should be doing with Libya to try and fix the situation there.

"We go through every single agreement that is made with a third country from a fundamental rights point of view, from where the money is going point of view, and also to make sure that we identify a migration policy that is fair with those who are eligible for protection, that is fair with those who are not with a better returns policy, and that is harsh on traffickers," she said.

"I still see that the only solution would be for asylum applications to be processed outside EU territory in order for us not to end up in a situation where the most vulnerable people on the planet face an almost certain death in our sea."

"Its been 10 years since the Lampedusa tragedy," she said, in reference to a boat carrying irregular migrants that went down off the Italian island of Lampedusa in October 2013, killing more than 360 people onboard. "What has happened since then? what have we done when the Pope said that the Mediterranean is the largest cemetery in the world. What have we done? If we don't respond to that, our voters will not think that we are capable, so that is what we need to fight for," she said.

Asked by foreign press about the rise of extremist parties, Metsola said: "I don't think we should ignore the rise of the extremes, I think we should counter it. You counter that narrative by proving that Europe matters, and it matters to our young people, and that we are as ambitious as we ever were. Look at the successes we've had. Who would have thought at the beginning of this mandate what we would go through."

"In 2019, 26 out of 28 countries put migration as the top of their concerns. The other two are UK and Ireland who said it was Brexit. But in 2019 besides migration we were worried that there would be more movement to leave the EU. You don't hear that any more. Why? Because of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the way we addressed the pandemic, the way we have united like never before on energy procurement, gas storage, diversification, investment in renewables, helping member states recover. So I think we should focus on this," she said.

Vice-President of the EU Parliament Pedro Silva Pereira (S&D) was also asked about the rise of extremists. The rise of the extreme right is a trend, he said, noting however that it is not happening in all countries in the same manner.

"The extreme right is selling illusions, that if we go back to old borders we could address our problems more effectively. But all major problems we face now, from migration to climate change, energy dependency and others, are problems we can better address as an EU in a united manner."

He noted, however, that where there is discontent and rising inflation "you understand people feel they should have a better life." He said that in such a situation it is easy for some to raise the illusion that another solution would be possible. As for how to address this, "I would say first we need a Europe that is able to deliver on social justice, on the fight against poverty etc. That is why the socialists are so keen on having a strong social agenda. The other element is not to make a political figure of the extreme right giving them more influence than they have now."

"We see, as a worrying development, that some centre right parties and in liberal family are willing to engage in agreements with the extreme right, as it will only give the extreme right more influence, and raise the risk of capturing the agenda of the centre right parties," he said.

Vice-President of the EU Parliament Rainer Wieland (EPP) was asked by Maltese media about how the EU Parliament can work more practically to secure trust of EU citizens given scandals that had taken place. He said that this is difficult to answer as this Parliament is doing much more than national parliaments. "For the tastes of some people the Parliament is acting too much."

To build trust, he said, is a common task. He referred to populism. He believes that the extremes from left and right are a much smaller danger for Europe and democracy than populism. "Populism is increasing and in those countries where the classical parties started to copy the populists, the more quickly the political culture declined. This is the major challenge, to resist to make populist competition. We have to stop competitions of promises and start a competition of delivery, back to delivering. For me this is the only soil where trust can grow."

Photo: European Union 2023 - Source : EP/ DAINA LE LARDIC