Updated | Mifsud Bonnici welcomes voluntary resettlement, no meetings with Italian counterpart

A number of EU member states have voluntarily accepted to take a number of asylum seekers which landed in Malta last week, EU Commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmström said this afternoon.

Justice and home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said practically half the EU-27, as well as Norway, would take asylum seekers under the temporary resettlement programme. Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and Slovakia were among the nations mentioned that would alleviate the flow of asylum seekers to Malta.

Mifsud Bonnici was clear about the voluntary decision by the member states to take asylum seekers being of special benefit to Malta. After the JHA council meeting, Italian counterpart Roberto Maroni expressed his disappointment at the EU and said it "was not worth" being in the Union. Malmström said the EC had cooperated with Italy in alleviating the burden on its reception centres.

"Commissioner Malmström said the EC was not yet ready to trigger the Solidarity Mechanism but said Malta needs assistance. The directive in question is applicable for people who deserve international protection - asylum seekers - and not economic migrants.

"Malta has presented its case and in the meantime member states are going to take asylum seekers with temporary protection as part of the pilot resettlement project."

Asked by MaltaToday whether Malta or any member state had raised the issue of the Italian blockade of migrants saved by Malta earlier last week, Mifsud Bonnici simply stated that agreements with the Tunisian government existed with Italy and France but did not delve into the legality or otherwise of the Italian blockade.

He also said he had no opportunity to speak to Italian counterpart Roberto Maroni.

Earlier in the afternoon, Malmström said justice and home affairs ministers had mainly discussed the new immigration influx in the southern Mediterranean, and all member states had agreed to the council conclusions. “The EC has worked to evacuate refugees from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt, we have provided the funds available, and we will work on regional protection programmes and assistance for countries like Malta.

“The council has approved to prolong the pilot resettlement programme for migrants with temporary protection in Malta, which is a very small island with a limited capacity and we must support the country.”

She said the EC had reiterated that it was still premature for the solidarity mechanism to be invoked. “We recognise the huge pressure on Italy and Malta, but we are not their yet to launch that mechanism. There is a lot of countries.

"It is clear that the EC is performing a balancing act between the great numbers of refugees and asylum seekers in Tunisia and Egypt, and the pressure on Maltese capability to receive asylum seeker fleeing Libya."

Malmström said she had written to all ministers beforehand highlighting what the EC had done to alleviate the flow of migrants from Tunisia to Italy, strengthening Operation Hermes and Posidon and other Frontex capacities.

European Commissioner for justice and home affairs Cecilia Malmström has displayed little enthusiasm for activating the EU’s solidarity mechanism in support of Malta and Italy’s roles in succouring asylum seekers leaving Libyan shores.

Earlier in the day, Malmström said the Solidarity Mechanism directive was a product of the Kosovo crisis, "so we’re talking of hundreds of refugees. We’re not there yet,” she told journalists as she entered the Council building for today’s meeting with European ministers of the interior.

“I think it’s too premature… there are other ways to show solidarity to Italy and Malta, the refugees in Libya that are coming to Europe and who require international protection.”

In her blog today, Malmström writes that many issues that will be discussed today will be overshadowed by the current situation in the Mediterranean. “The boats are still arriving in Lampedusa – sources say that they now even carry refugees from Côte d’Ivoire. Italy and Malta have both called for an activation of the Temporary Protection Directive. Everybody is talking about solidarity and today we’ll see what this means in practice.”