Malta plans follow-up to Valletta migration summit

Malta plans to organise a follow-up to last year’s Valletta summit on migration during its upcoming rotating presidency of the EU council, home affairs minister Carmelo Abela announced.

“There is no doubt that migration and asylum will remain hot topics when Malta takes up the presidency [at the start of 2017],” Abela said. “Malta will do its utmost to push for an agreement between EU member states on a common strategy to tackle migration challenges adequately and effectively. We are all in the same boat and must act together with a spirit of solidarity. We have long spoken about potential solutions at EU level but our citizens now expect to see concrete results.”

Abela was addressing a European Parliament delegation in Malta, composed of Cecile Kyenge, Helga Stevens, Carlos Coelho and Miriam Dalli.

The Valletta migration summit was held last November, bringing together leaders of European and African countries to debate conjoint solutions to tackle African migration to Europe.

They agreed to set up a €1.8 billion Emergency Trust Fund to help development in Africa, as well as annual development assistance of around €20 billion.

Abela said that the follow-up summit would allow countries to take stock of the progress since the November meeting.