'Citizens expect PM to honour his word on migration' - PN

The Opposition's spokesperson for home affairs Jason Azzopardi and Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola said the country was expecting the Prime Minister to achieve concrete results during this week's EU summit.

Between tomorrow and Friday, Joseph Muscat will be in Brussels for the European Council meeting which is expected to focus on irregular migration.

Azzopardi and Metsola insisted that the Prime Minister must be true to his words and return to Malta with concrete action adopted by the EU.

"After he adopted an arrogant stance, saying that the EU had to wake up and smell the coffee, Malta now expects the Prime Minister to achieve concrete results," Azzopardi said.

Azzopardi said Muscat had boasted of having influenced the European Council in adopting a conclusion that went beyond expressing condolences with victims' relatives.

The official conclusions mention "determined action" to prevent the loss of lives at sea, enhance cooperation with countries of origin and transit, reinforcement of Frontex, swift implementation of the European border surveillance system EUROSUR, and for the European Commission to report in December on the work of the newly-established Task Force for the Mediterranean.

Azzopardi said that the Prime Minister must now ensure that member states truly adopt the fair sharing of responsibility.

"We now expect to see the relocation of migrants back into force. Under the Nationalist administration, 2,000 migrants were relocated from Malta. Under Labour none," he said.

Metsola said that Muscat should push for member states to understand that the protection of migrants was the responsibility of all member states and not of the receiving country on its own.

"The ball is now in the Prime Minister's court to convince the EU that responsibility had to be shared by all," she said, adding that Muscat should also seek to reopen discussions on amendments to the Dublin II regulation.

Meanwhile, former AFM commander Martin Xuereb has now declared that Italian boats "should have acted immediately" to save lives at sea when it received a distress call from a sinking boat on 11 October.

200 were saved in the rescue mission subsequently coordinated by Malta.

Journalist Fabrizio Gatti published documentary evidence that Italy's Libra patrol boat was a short distance away from the boat that was carrying over 460 migrants. "The sinking fishing-boat was certainly visible on their radar screen, being such a short distance away," Gatti wrote of the 12:26pm rescue call received by the Italians on Friday, 11 October.

Asked whether she would be raising questions in the European Parliament on the matter, Metsola said she would first wait for answers by the AFM before proceeding in the EP.