Muscat: Had we not taken action, we would have been facing a humanitarian crisis

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has reiterated his belief that had an agreement not been signed with Libya, Europe would have faced a humanitarian crisis come spring. “We must speak realistically,” he said. “With all its defects, the only solution that has so far worked for the EU is the agreement with Turkey.”

“We can have moral debates about whether someone wanting a better life should leave a country and to another country. Should we just allow anyone to come in just because they have crossed a desert?” asked Muscat, while pointing out that a considerable number of people rescued by members of the AFM were from countries considered to be safe.

Muscat was replying to questions put to him following a ministerial statement in which he updated parliament on progress made during last week’s Malta summit, which saw the leaders from the 28 European Union member states meet in Valletta to discuss migration, trans-atlantic relations and the future of the European Union.

He emphasised that over the last 15 months, a lot of work had been done on the part of the European Union to tackle migration. “Before the Libya agreement, the EU was smart enough to start working on Niger. The country is one of the biggest problems when it comes to migration, and a lot of progress has been made there.”

While he acknowledged that the Libya is an unstable country, Muscat said that this was not a good enough reason not to engage with the government and to seek a solution.

“We were asked during the process, by EU heads of states, whether we could deal with Libya and our reply was always that we can either work with them now or we can abandon them and deal with a humanitarian crisis,” he said, adding that through the agreement, Libya’s Southern borders will be controlled for the first time.  

Moreover, the Prime Minister emphasised the importance of helping communities in Libya. “A lot of people just transport people in Libya because they have nothing else. It is just business for them, as though they were transporting anything else. We want to substitute that income.”

Turning to relations between the EU and the United States, Muscat said that the discussion between EU leaders during the Malta summit was not one where anti-American sentiment was expressed. “There was a sense of this being a gamechanger in the way the EU positions itself, 60 years after the Rome Treaty,” he said.

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil had earlier questioned what progress had been made on migration. “Since the [2015 Valletta] summit, more migrants have crossed the Mediterranean than have ever crossed before. Did the summit reach its goals?”

He appealed to the Prime Minister to tell people “whether the situation has in fact changed.”

Turning Sai Mizzi – Malta’s envoy to Shanghai and wife of minister Konrad Mizzi – Busuttil asked whether it is the case that the Prime Minister has been “taken hostage” by Konrad Mizzi, who has in turn, he said been taken hostage by his wife.

Foreign minister George Vella, speaking after Muscat, accused the leader of the opposition of not engaging in any constructive debate. “All I have heard from is cynicism,” he said.

He pushed back against claims that nothing had been done on migration, adding that everywhere he goes, “the Valletta summit is described as a watershed even” for migration.