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Karl Schembri
A proposal made by Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg to the cabinet to shrink the vast search and rescue area around the Maltese islands by some 70 per cent is expected to be shot down by his colleagues in the coming weeks, MaltaToday can reveal.
Borg’s plan was to reduce drastically the area, spanning over 250,000 square km from the tip of Tunisia to Crete, for which Malta is responsible to search and rescue ships in distress in the light of the burdens of irregular immigration.
His proposal is also intended to mitigate the potential effects of a Europe-wide initiative under discussion and being resisted by Malta, which may force the country responsible for the rescue region to take in all immigrants rescued in the area, instead of the first port of call.
Officially, Borg’s proposal is still under examination but cabinet sources say the majority of ministers are against the idea.
“The matter is being discussed by the Maritime Jurisdiction Commission. The government will decide once the report is finalised,” a spokesman for Borg said.
Ministers speaking to MaltaToday said that around the cabinet table, the balance is tipping against Borg’s proposal.
They predict international pressure on Malta to give up, in equal measure, the lucrative Flight Information Region, from which the government earns around Lm3.5 million yearly for air traffic passing over the same area. In the last three years, the government made an income of Lm10.6 million from the flight information region.
“You can’t have the cake and eat it,” a minister said. “Politically, the move would put us in a bad light with our neighbours, and we may end up losing a lot of money generated through the flight region.”
Borg and the few ministers supporting his idea however argue that the space is proving to be a liability where the sea is concerned, outweighing the benefits of the revenue coming from the skies.
Sources from the Home Affairs Ministry say Borg is also concerned by the Italians’ sophisticated ways of intercepting, by radar, sea craft carrying irregular immigrants passing through Malta’s search and rescue area, although the massive landings in Lampedusa and Sicily show that even for them the situation is out of control.
On the other hand, the passageway used by most of the traffickers of immigrants is in any case close to Maltese shores, in many cases mistaking the island for Sicily.
“This means that if we reduce the search and rescue area we will still be facing the same problems,” another influential minister said. “It is not a solution.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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