Government yet to deliver on migrants' relocation – PN

Although the government welcomed the establishment of the Task Force Mediterranean, the measures announced yesterday fail to address Malta's most pressing need, the relocation of migrants to other countries, the Nationalist Party said. 

Yesterday, a task force of EU member states identified a slew of actions to address the flow of migration from Africa into Europe, which will include both repatriating failed asylum seekers as well as "outsourcing" the processing of their claims in transit countries.

However, Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi said that although the Labour Party has for years called for a European agreement on mandatory burden sharing, the 38 measures announced by European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström do not include relocation measures.

The opposition's statement which makes reference to both "irregular" and "illegal" migrants, added that the task force only offer a continuation to the policies embraced by the EU in the last few years.

Azzopardi pointed out that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had vociferously called on Europe "to smell the coffee" and stamped his feet in order to introduce burden sharing.

He said that the opposition and the country expect the government to keep its word and deliver what it promised in terms of migration.

"The PN expects the government to deliver what it promised to the people and fulfil the expectations it built in the last few months over migration," Azzopardi said.

Just after seeing his attempt to push back migrants to Libya botched by the European Court of Human Rights, prime minister Joseph Muscat said that his actions were intended to attract attention and insisted that Malta "must get its numbers right on migration."

Muscat had also spoken about the "need to spread out the numbers throughout Europe."

 The establishment of the Task Force Mediterranean (TFM) was a proposal made at a meeting of European home affairs ministers in October, following the tragedies in the Mediterranean that saw hundreds of migrants and refugees drown at sea.

European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced the 38 measures, saying the TFM was instructed to issue a set of measures and priority actions, which should now be followed up by operational decisions during December.