Only 272 refugees relocated as EU plan stalls, Malta has not yet taken 131 quota

Malta has yet to take in any refugees as agreed by EU leaders following last year’s huge exodus as the latest report from the EU shows that only 272 people from Italy and Greece out of a total of 160,000 have been relocated. 

The latest figures show that the EU has miserably failed to deal with the refugee crisis, in which over a million refugees, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq fled to Europe. 

The European Commission said that, of the 160,000 refugees in Italy and Greece, only 190 had been relocated from Italy, and just 82 from Greece.

On its part, Malta made a commitment to host 131 refugees who are in Italy and Greece, but as of last Monday none had arrived. So far, Malta has engaged two migration experts and established a national contact point. 

Speaking to MaltaToday, home affairs minister Carmelo Abela admitted that the process was “slow,” however he pointed out that Malta had not yet received the list of refugees selected for relocation by Italy and Greece. 

“We have done what we were asked to do, namely to provide the number of refugees Malta is ready to take in on a quarterly basis. This process was completed in September and now we are waiting for the respective countries to select the refugees.”

He added that Malta has committed to take in 189 refugees over two years.

Abela explained that once Greece and Italy provide the documentation and list of refugees, Malta will initiate a screening process and once the people obtain a security clearance they will be relocated to Malta. 

One key failure in the relocation process has been the inability to engage experts dealing with refugees in the so-called “hotspots,” chiefly in Italian and Greek islands. In Lampedusa and Sicily, Italian authorities only have 40 experts to deal with 2,250 refugees.

Other countries, including Luxembourg and Cyprus, have relocated a small number of people but the bloc has once again failed to live up to expectations. 

The emergency relocation mechanism promoted by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, includes a relocation of refugees by quota – allocating refugees to member states. However, many countries – particularly in Eastern Europe – have refused to accept the scheme. 

The plan has been hindered by political bickering and an Italian official was quoted as saying that “at this rate, it will take until the end of this century to relocate all 40,000 refugees.”

But nonetheless, Malta’s efforts do not match up to rhetoric by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who was a vocal supporter of the relocation effort.

While the government went to great lengths to justify the Valletta Summit on Migration and the CHOGM by commissioning international advertising agency M&C Saatchi to quantify the effectiveness of the events in terms of exposure, Malta has yet to take in any refugees. 

Malta was first expected to take in 300 refugees from Italy and Greece back in June, with Muscat describing the distribution key as “the solidarity the government had always sought.”

Muscat had insisted Malta had to be consistent with its long-held position that the migration burden should be shared. “I prefer taking in 120 migrants entering the country legally by plane and knowing that we can handle them rather than thousands coming here illegally by sea, which can create a burden. At the same time I have my mind at rest that, if an emergency crops up, Malta will also be helped.”

In September, Muscat said Malta was playing its part in the humanitarian crisis that refugees were going through by taking part in an EU plan to relocate and resettle asylum seekers.

At this point, the number of relocated refugees to Malta had fallen to 133. “Although we had our own issues with refugee numbers in the past, Malta is willing to accept refugees from Italy and Greece,” Muscat said.

He was more cautious when asked why Malta was not issuing humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees. “It is not always easy to balance the necessary bureaucratic processes and the humanitarian needs,” Muscat said. 

“We face many challenges in this regard because it is often difficult to obtain and verify information about applicants to be sure there are no abuses.”

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least one million migrants entered Europe last year, with over 800,000 of those traveling from Turkey to Greece—half of them Syrian. The figures for 2014 were 280,000 detected migrants, and 570,000 asylum applications.