Solidarity dealt another blow, large-scale migrant relocation loses momentum

Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici is insisting that the EU justice and home affairs ministers have not turned down an extended relocation programme for asylum seekers in Malta, after reports that no agreement was found on furthering the EU Reallocation for Malta (EUREMA) project into a large-scale project.

EU ministers rejected the proposal to institute a large-scale migrant relocation programme during a discussion on solidarity between member states on asylum issues, Danish Justice Minister Morten Bodskov said on Thursday.

Ministers also shot down the possibility of suspending the EU's Dublin II regulation, which returns migrants to their first point of entry and places an enormous burden on small gateway member states like Malta.

A press statement by the Mifsud Bonnici's ministry on the meeting in the Danish capital of Copenhagen did not even mention that the project had been spiked by EU ministers, who showed no support for an internal EU relocation programme suggested by the Commission.

"At no point did the Council 'turn down the extended relocation programme of asylums seekers from Malta'," a ministry spokesperson insisted.

"What took place was rather the contrary, with member states acknowledging Malta's particular situation as the reason for the existence of the pilot project for relocation from Malta.

"This was supported by Commissioner Malmström who further reiterated her encouragement for member states to relocate beneficiaries of international protection from Malta," a spokesperson for the minister told MaltaToday on Friday.

Danish minister Bodskov, whose country is opposed to the solidarity proposal, said the first conclusion of the Council was that "there was no support for the debate that has been going on for years when it comes to... the internal distribution of refugees within the EU."

EUREMA was set up in 2009 but only 10 member states made pledges to resettle some 500 refugees, less than the United States' own programme for relocation of refugees and other protected migrants.

Mifsud Bonnici's spokesperson said the pilot project exists in Malta already, but the matter is still to be debated further after EUREMA is evaluated.

The pilot project in Malta allows voluntary relocations to other member states as part of a bid to ease the immigration burden. The European Commission had suggested extending and institutionalising the programme throughout the bloc as part of its push for further solidarity between member states.