MEP addresses French UMP activists

In his address, Busuttil listed the key difficulties faced by the Maltese people and also asylum seekers, from the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean and the prospect of being blocked in Malta by the existing European rules.

“Immigration is not a Maltese challenge, it is not a French challenge or an Italian problem... it is a challenge for all of Europe.”

Busuttil said “a realistic solution” was needed by providing “an efficient and just mechanism” that separates persons requiring international protection from economic migrants, and fair responsibility sharing across the EU.

“France was wrong to reintroduce controls at its border with Italy,” Busuttil said of the Schengen crisis after France closed borders to a group of Tunisian migrants. “But Italy was equally wrong to give out thousands of residence permits to Tunisian nationals who should have been sent back.”

Busuttil said that recent incidents showed that for free movement to be guaranteed, EU countries needed to understand that the external borders were also a common concern. “Schengen does not depend solely on the Italian-French border but also on the external border stretching across the Mediterranean.”

The Union for a People’s Movement (UMP) is the French sister-party of the Nationalist Party in the European Peoples’ Parties group.