‘People are drowning at our doorsteps, we should be ashamed’ – Gonzi

The European Union should hang its head in shame at how the Mediterranean Sea has become a cemetery, ex- Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said.

“Malta has become an expert at saving lives at sea, but people are still drowning on our doorsteps,” Gonzi told an EU Civil Liberties Committee meeting. “Frontex is the EU’s life-saving arm of the EU, but we need to start translating words into more action. Frontex needs all the financial and logistical support it needs to carry out its mission successfully.”

He warned that any future EU migration policy must focus on the burden sharing of migrants amongst EU member states.

“As Prime Minister, I had always argued with passion that burden sharing must be the central pillar of an effective EU migration policy,” Gonzi said. “Without it, any new migration policy will not work as the unbalanced pressure on EU countries taking in all the migrants will eventually create social havoc.”

He pointed out that Malta welcomed 18,000 irregular migrants in the past decade, by population ratio equivalent to 2.5 million migrants arriving in the United Kingdom.

He added that any EU migration policy must differentiate between irregular migrants fleeing from torture, extreme poverty, or other humanitarian crises, and those immigrating to seek a better economic future for themselves and their families. He insisted that both cases are genuine, but that the problem of irregular migrants fleeing from a humanitarian crisis is far more demanding and urgent.

“Nearly 90% of Malta’s migrants come from Eritrea and Somalia,” he said. “Practically all the migrants arriving on our shores were victims of war, extreme poverty, or other humanitarian crises that demanded a European, and not just a Maltese, response.”

He also said that the repatriation of failed asylum seekers, who have no valid claim to remain in the EU, is “not as easy as one is led to believe”.

“For some strange and unfathomable reason, even this has been difficult to implement,” Gonzi said. “Returning immigrants to a safe third country requires valid travel documents.”

“The migration issue is politically sensitive and it provides very strong fodder for all the populist approaches that try to feed to the basic instincts of people, instead of to the basic values which the EU professes to embrace,” Gonzi said. “Still, we must adopt an Eu approach based on the EU’s core values.

“The writing is on the wall. We are coping with an unprecedented number of refugees landing on our shores. We face the risk of social unrest and disillusionment in what the EU is supposed to represent.”

He was speaking at a meeting of the European Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to discuss a migration report, of which Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola is a co-rapporteur.

‘Europe must move from tweeted condolences to real action’ – Metsola

Metsola and Italian MEP Cecile Kyenge were chosen as co-rapporteurs for this cross-party report in December and the two are expected to launch the actual report in October.

In her speech, Metsola said that Europe must take a concrete stand on migration and “move from tweeted condolences and empty statements to real action”.

“Member states bicker about increased pull factors while bodies continue to wash up on our beaches,” Metsola said. “It is a situation that we should not tolerate any longer. We should be angry that another summer is with us and that it has got this far.

“The warning signs have been there for years and in the last months, we have heard warning after warning from NGOs, the UN and our own agencies that the instability in Libya will mean that migration flows will increase across the Mediterranean.

We have found the funds, the political will and the assets to practically eradicate piracy off the Somali coast, but we have yet to manage the same commitment to save lives, boost security, tackle crime networks and address the migration issue with the same vigour.”

She also insisted that the EU must up its fight against human trafficking, the hubs of organised crime that “prey on the most vulnerable of people”, and the new phenomenon of “ghost ships” in the Mediterranean bearing irregular immigrants but no crew.

She warned that the Mediterranean’s migration problems are a direct consequences of the situations in Libya and sub-Saharan Africa.

“We need to do more to help the countries in the region to get back on their feet and stop the push factor in the long- term,” Metsola said. “In the meantime, the answer is not to fortress Europe. We also need to look at legal migration routes as part of our strategy.

“After the Lampedusa Tragedy in 2013, the European Parliament passed a crucial cross party resolution that helps map the way forward on these issues. After all the rhetoric I expected Member States to pick up the baton and push it forward. They have not yet done enough.”

‘Human traffickers becoming more daring’ - Dalli

In her speech, Labour MEP Miriam Dalli said that the EU must work more closely with third countries to tackle the root causes of migration.

 “We also need to address the situation in Libya, because human smugglers and traffickers are becoming more daring, forcing migrants to board overloaded boats and pushing them towards a journey that can lead to their deaths,” Dalli said.

She also questioned how the European Commission plans to make Frontex more effective and how it plans to show solidarity with the countries most directly exposed to the problem.

“The reception capacities of member states must be taken into account, and we cannot allow certain member states to ignore the situation entirely, simply because their geographical location allows them to do so,” Dalli said.