Labour criticism on burden sharing ‘ridiculous’ - PN MEPs

In a statement, Nationalist MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa said that the Labour MEPs's criticism is “downright incorrect and therefore unfounded.”

Labour MEPs Louis Grech, Edward Scicluna and John Attard Montalto today criticised the EPP group for their failure to agree a principle of burden sharing and solidarity that would allow Member States including Italy, Spain and Malta to cope with mass migration in the aftermath of the Libya crisis.

In a statement, the MEPs said that both the Socialist and Democrat and EPP groups had tabled separate resolutions on how to deal with the crisis in Libya. However, while the S&D group, at the instigation of the Maltese delegation, demanded burden sharing and the adoption of a Common EU Asylum System, S&D spokeswomen Ana Gomes confirmed that the EPP refused to accept this.

"Contrary to Labour's claims", they said, "burden sharing is indeed included in today's resolution on Libya, which in Paragraph 15 specifically calls on the European Commission to respond adequately to any mass migratory movements in accordance with Article 80 of the Treaty".

This paragraph was drafted directly by Busuttil and included in the resolution on the request of the EPP, the two MEPs said. “Article 80 of the Treaty requires the EU immigration policy to be based on the principles of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility.”

"Before rushing to the press to make baseless accusations, labour MEPs should at least have had the decency to read the text of the resolution,"  Busuttil and Casa argued. "They evidently did not even read it."

"It is a great pity that the labour MEPs would like to play partisan politics on the situation in Libya. We refuse to play that game," they maintained.