‘Voluntary’ migrant relocation not enough, home affairs minister warns

A voluntary EU migrant relocation scheme cannot be expected to significantly alleviate migration pressures off southern Mediterranean countries, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela warned.

“The EU voluntarily relocated 227 irregular migrants from Malta in 2010, but then 1,179 arrived the following year,” Abela told a Euro-Med conference organized by Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola. “Around 300 were relocated the following year and over 3,000 migrants arrived in the following two years.”

EU leaders agreed on Thursday night to relocate 40,000 migrants from Italy and Greece within the next two years, and to resettle 20,000 refugees who are currently outside the EU, particularly from war-torn Syria and Iraq.  

The EU Council concluded that it will drop the word ‘voluntary’ from the scheme, but not include the word ‘mandatory’.  

However, the UK, Ireland and Denmark have opted out of this scheme. Hungary, which is facing thousands of migrants crossing the border by land, and Bulgaria, one of the EU’s poorest countries, have also been exempted from the scheme.

Abela said that Malta will insist that the EU’s relocation mechanism takes population densities into account and alters its employment rate criteria.

“The employment criteria has a weighting of 10%, but has a 90% weighting on Malta,” he warned.

“Malta considers that further measures are required to address migration,” Abela added. “We cannot continue to allow criminal smuggling networks to operate with impunity. It is our duty to find ways to illicit and curb criminal acts and we cannot rely on intelligent operations alone.

“The EU must strengthen its cooperation with countries of origin and transit, and it is crucial to ensure that irregular migrants who do not qualify for asylum are sent back.”

“While the government is in favour of people migrating to improve their economic status, we are against them doing so through irregular migration- not only because of its illegality, but because of its high risk and its susceptibility to exploitation.”

In her speech, Metsola warned that terrorist organisations like the Islamic State can only be effectively defeated by a united Libya.

“As much as we can try to square the circle, there are no other real or viable options that will lead to lasting progress other than a home-grown and home-led solution,” she said.  “However, the time pressure is real. Extremists and organised crime networks cannot be allowed the space to operate.

As a trusted partner of the Libyan people, Malta can play an important part in helping to build confidence and assisting the process without imposition.”

She praised the European Commission in “taking a big step forward” by deciding to issue a proposal for a mandatory distribution mechanism later on this year.

“For the first time, it puts a concrete proposal in front of EU Prime Ministers,” Metsola said. “We will keep up the pressure on them to act. The status quo in this area is simply unacceptable.”

However, she warned that the key used by EC in its proposal does not take into account the size of a country's territory or affect people from Somalia.

Metsola, an EU co-rapporteur on a migration report, said she will seek to find out where the EU's money is going in order to help countries in Africa get back on their feet, how the EU can boost search and rescue, how they can dismantle the crime networks profiting, how people can seek protection without being forced onto unseaworthy boats, and how to return those not eligible for protection in Europe.

“Europe does not have unlimited resources and those resources should be used for those who are truly in need,” she admitted. “We need more efficient systems to ensure that those who do not qualify for protection should be safely returned.”

However, she insisted that the human aspect of the migration crisis must remain at the forefront of debates.

"A lot of MEPs have never even been to North Africa or met a migrant,” she said. “It is up to countires like Malta to combat the rhetoric and engage in negotiations with countries like Tunisia.”

“We sometimes get lost in statistics when talking about migration, and it is perhaps too easy to forget that behind every number there is a life,” she said. “As lawmakers we need to be able to understand what causes people to flee, what obstacles they face and how the EU - acting together - can help address both the underlying issues and the emergency short-term challenges.”

‘Libyans not tweeting about migration problem’

Sami Zaptia, editor of ‘The Libyan Herald’, warned that Libyans on the ground do not consider the migration issue to be a problem they are responsible for.

“Libyan citizens are not tweeting about it, it is a non-issue for them,” Zaptia admitted. “It is also a non-issue for both Libyan governments, despite all their public speeches stating otherwise. It is important to incentivize them to place migration high on their agenda.”

Former EU Commissioner Tonio Borg warned that the repatriation of migrants is difficult because they arrive in Europe without any travel documents precisely to avoid repatriation.”

“Also, countries of origin, on some pretext or other, intentionally act difficulty. One particular country insisted on knowing the chief of the tribe of the migrants in Malta as a condition for repatriation.

He argued that development aid should be linked to a repatriation scheme, and that countries who want to receive EU development aid must introduce an EU travel document system that will allow failed asylum seekers to be repatriated.