Gaddafi's illegitimacy forces EU into asylum policy rethink, MEP says

Gaddafi was an accepted part of the international community but that changed when he turned his guns on his people, MEP Simon Busuttil says.

Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil today fielded questions from Facebook users on the European Parliament's Facebook page, where some 70 users asked the MEP on immigration-related issues.

Busuttil said the EU had to rethink its asylum and migration policies, when asked by MaltaToday if the EU could continue 'outsourcing' its border control to dictators like Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi,

A proxy agreement between Italy and Libya, governed by a million-euro package, gave birth to the infamous pushbacks which saw Italy and Libya sending back asylum seekers and other migrants to the North African country. Libya is not a signatory of the Geneva Convention for the protection of refugees.

"The agreement with Gaddafi was not an EU agreement but a bilateral agreement between Italy and Libya," Busuttil said. "It would have been ideal if we had an EU agreement but Libya declined. Now that the situation has changed (since Gaddafi turned his guns on his own people), yes, I think that we should also rethink our asylum and migration policies.

"In fact, the EU is in the process of establishing a common asylum policy by 2012. Why are we not there yet? Simple, because this is a highly controversial subject and it is difficult to get everyone to agree on it. But we are working on it."

Answering questions put to him by The Times, Busuttil claimed that Gaddafi's departure would "enable the situation to settle back to some normality and by definition, people will have less fear to flee from Libya."

Busuttil also said he was "not part of that agreement" when asked about his endorsement of the Libyan pushbacks a year go.

"I did think that illegal routes should be stopped because it is illegal. Whatever we may think of him today, at the time Gaddafi was an accepted part of the international community. Things changed however, when he turned his guns on his people. Thats when he become illegitimate. I was among the first to denounce that in my country. I think you know that.."

Busuttil had described the pushbacks - namely the Italian-Libyan agreement - as having been "the only effective measure to counter irregular immigration because they had led to a significant reduction in the number of arrivals" and that they had  Moreover they had saved hundreds of lives by preventing prospective irregular migrants from making the dangerous sea crossing in the first place.

Busuttil had cautioned against criticism of the bilateral agreements with Libya without committing to responsibility-sharing of migrants. "Those who criticise these agreements have no reply when we ask them the question who is going to shoulder the responsibility to take them.

"They want migrants to freely cross into Europe but then expect the Southern countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Malta to take them. This is not an option," Busuttil had said.

Busuttil also told Facebook users that the EU had to come up with a "veritable Marshall plan" for Arab countries currently going through the transition towards democracy, "to show that it is ready to help the countries that choose democracy. In other words, to show that democracy pays."