Dalli highlights Maltese concerns in Immigration Policy workshop

The Social Democratic Party of Germany invited MEP Miriam Dalli, the Labour Party's representative in the European Parliament on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, to contribute to their upcoming policy on the issue of Immigration.

Dalli highlighted the situation in Malta and touched up upon the challenges that the island faces in order to incorporate these concerns within a policy the German political party is currently working on. 

Dalli highlighted the need to establish mechanisms whereby member states on the periphery of Europe are not the only states carrying the responsibility for mass amounts of migrants, while other member states are left unaccountable.

"All EU states have a responsibility to deal with the situation in the Mediterranean", stressed Dalli, stating that the EU needs to recognise that the Dublin System is not a fair system, especially to border member states.

"Because Malta lies at the heart of the Mediterranean, we have had to face a situation where the average number of immigrants who enter Malta illegally in these last years is comparable to 300,000 migrants living in Germany. So it is only fair to ensure that member states welcome an amount of people proportionate to their reception facilities," Dalli insisted.

She also touched upon the Austrian Proposal of resettlement, which encompasses a distribution key in order to ensure fair distribution of migrants, and ensures that no single member state is left alone.

Dalli highlighted the need for the EU to work with the developing world in order to help aid Europe's sister continent with the tools it needs to foster democracy, rule of law and fundamental human rights. She concluded by stressing that if the EU does not act as a global partner, then the immigration situation will only get worse.  

A representative of the European Commission also addressed the audience and spoke about the Commission's plan to unveil its new policy on immigration at the end of May.

While stating that the Commission is looking into the possibility of creating reception centres outside of Europe to help decrease the amount of crossings in the Mediterranean, the representative did not exclude that the new Commission proposal may revise the much debated Dublin 2 Regulation.

The German SPD, who are part of the German coalition Government, are currently working on a new immigration policy which will help Germany resettle migrants into the federal republic, based on the country's economic needs.

In a recent interview in the newspaper Deutsche Welle, SPD parliamentary group leader, Thomas Opperman spoke out in favour of Germany taking on more migrants in order to effectively offset the aging of the population and resulting labor shortage in Germany and Europe.