‘Fair distribution system’ is the only solution to migration burden, says Busuttil

Simon Busuttil meets High Commissioner for Refugees • Video by Ray Attard

A fair distribution system would be the only tangible solution to the migration burden, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil told United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

Meeting Guterres at the airport’s ministerial lounge before the High Commissioner departs for Lebanon, Busuttil saluted the work carried out by UNHCR over the years.

But Malta, he added, always expected more by both the European Union and the UNHCR.

“No politician has a magic formula so instead of stopping migratory flows we should talk about managing the flows, especially when affecting certain individual and frontier countries, such as Malta, in a particularly burdensome way,” Busuttil said.

The PN leader said the solution was for Europe to look at it from a “truly European” point of view.

“The only way you can effectively manage migratory flows is to introduce a distribution system which would allocate fairly the responsibilities of hosting migrants in case where certain frontier countries are overburdened,” he said, insisting that this would be the only fair system Europe could adopt to address this issue.

Busuttil said the issue had to be addressed with dignity towards the protection of life, dignity for the victims but also with dignity for the frontier countries and Europe that is a bloc of civilized countries.

Guterres added that one instrument, the temporary protection direction, existed but was never applied. He conceded that Malta could not be compared to the bigger member states.

Expressing gratitude over the work carried out by the Armed Forces of Malta, Guterres said the situation had now reached a point where Europe had to assume responsibility.