Risking European trust over migration

The social media backlash against European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, with the most insalubrious of the Facebook 'electorate' posting a barrage of insults against the Swedish commissioner for asking that Malta receive the Salamis migrants, gave us an insight into the sort of anti-Europeanism that migration can elicit in the Maltese.

The hints from the prime minister's recent comments - 'strong on migration', 'unwilling to be trampled upon' - are that a clear agenda is being fomented for Labour candidates to the European Parliament elections. Immigration will be an issue in 2014, and capitalising on the government's strong-arm tactics on migrant arrivals, MEP candidates will be using this show of strength in an effort at consolidating Labour's four-seat majority in Brussels.

With the Nationalist Party unable to take the moral high ground, because like Labour it too supports detention policies and has historically been passive on the Italian-Libyan pushbacks (apart from having supported the Salamis stand-off), we run the risk of having no room for a reasoned debate on the role of the European Union in assisting the Maltese islands on immigration and asylum and on the legislative changes necessary to make the asylum system fairer for coastal states like Malta.

The crisis that both the government and Opposition are constructing will turn, undoubtedly, into a political weapon that will cost the nation dearly. In wielding immigration as a national symbol of anti-European discontent, the by-products will be a greater level of mistrust of the European institutions, such as the Commission itself and its role as a watchdog on Maltese laws and the actions of the government, and of the European Court of Justice and other agencies of the EU such as the Fundamental Rights Agency.

Outside observers would certainly marvel at the fact that unlike most member states, the Maltese seem relatively untouched by the reality of austerity and unemployment that the rest of Europe grapples with. The Maltese enjoyed the second best economic performance in the eurozone in 2012 while retaining high levels of trust in the European institutions as guardians of the Treaty and its associated freedoms (according to Eurobarometer). Against the backdrop of one of the most generous of EU packages negotiated in the last multi-annual financial framework, the former government boasted of having created 20,000 jobs during the previous five years. This year Labour ploughs ahead with tax cuts for a broad base of middle-class and high-income earners.

Added to this image of Maltese gumption is the nation's tendency to have always been welcoming to foreigners, albeit tourists, EU workers and businesses, as well as tax avoiders, who leave money in the economy and people's hands. With its open economy having forged links in all corners of the earth, and an educated class that speaks at least three languages, we have always believed ourselves to be natural mediators in Euro-Mediterranean issues. And yet, 2,000 annual arrivals of asylum seekers spark national outrage in a country that welcomes two million tourists a year. What is the underlying reason for this cultural disjuncture?

Contradictions like these exist in the most liberal of societies. In the multicultural Netherlands, the anti-Islamic right-winger Geert Wilders plans talks for a European right-wing bloc that will take on the European Parliament in 2014, riding high on a wave of Dutch Euroscepticism that is questioning whether the country should leave the EU. But the Netherlands has now been in recession for six quarters, with unemployment rising to 6.8% and the country now missing the 3% deficit target. Austerity measures are helping Eurosceptic and right-wing parties gather momentum in the polls, with a dangerous agenda.

It is true that Malta has limited power in influencing the EU agenda, but without the moral high ground, there is no doubt that northern member states will keep downplaying the legitimacy of national demands to reform the Dublin regulation or expect a mandatory burden-sharing system.

Politicians in Malta therefore have a stronger role to play in the migration debate, but not by contributing to either the criminalisation of migrants or distilling the value of our international obligations and the universal right to asylum. The construction of a migration crisis by the Nationalist administration, and now by Labour, served as the narrative to extract more financial support from Brussels. But today this narrative has continued to stoke xenophobia and racism in the Maltese population, serving to downplay our humanitarian obligations in such cases as the Salamis stand-off.

If Malta wants to demand more solidarity between European states on migration and asylum, it must be realistic and sensitive about its own international obligations towards asylum seekers. Both the government and the Opposition are acting as passive observers to the xenophobia that risks engulfing the electorate, unwilling to challenge national misconceptions on migration because it would damage their own electoral gains. They do so at a price, both nationally and at the European level.