DI LUCA CARAMAGNA  COMMISSIONE RIFUGIATI MALTA  CORRISPONDENTE PER MALTA PER AFRICANPEOPLE REVIEW AND RADIO

Malta facing a new wave of talks, will this lead to concrete policies?

 

‘300 migrants rescued from a sinking vessel and taken to Lampedusa as the weather turned bad on the high seas’ a local Maltese newspaper reports. One can easily believe that this highlight was written in regards to the recent tragedy that hit the news; but this is not the case. This abstract comes from a newspaper article published way back in 2008, Tuesday 25^th September to be exact. More or less the same time that a boat carrying hundreds of presumed African migrates caught on fire, capsizing, and claiming hundreds of lives. Malta has once again taken a central position on the matter, bringing a new wave of proposed change to the ever increasing issue.

Yet again the issue of migrants coming to Southern Europe from North Africa by boat has hit the headlines, an area of high concern. This time it seems to have gone beyond newspapers and onto the discussion tables of decision makers. Yet one wonders ‘what has been done and what is being done regarding an issue that is not new to governments and institutions?’.

The Maltese Search and Rescue Region (SRR) is vast, covering in excess of 250,000 square km. Rescuing boats at distress has become one of the Armed Forces of Malta’s main duties within this area. The Maltese government has begun talks on the two fronts; from a EU member state position to a Libyan ally position. But it wasn’t long ago that Malta hit headlines regarding boat arrivals.

In February 2013 Malta hit international headlines when it threatened that it will use ‘push back’ on a boat carrying a large number of African migrants. Immediately local and internationally based NGOs reacted strongly to such a behavior, Brussels also declaring ‘push-back’ illegal. This all came to an end when later that night the European Court of Human Rights blocked the deportation of the migrants. Later that day the Maltese government issued a statement saying such a practice was not planed to take place but was aimed at catching the attention at EU level on an issue that has not been taken seriously enough. Since then boat arrivals on the coast of Malta and its neighboring island of Lampedusa have been frequent and yet no action was taken. With the deaths of hundreds of people in the recent weeks Malta has hit headlines once again. As a boat heading towards the Southern Mediterranean European coast caught on fire when a blanket was lit in order to catch the attention of rescuers. The boat capsized claiming over a hundred lives, amongst them were women and children. As had happened with the ‘push-back’ incident Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat demands that the EU, as a unified body, deal with this matter.

Monday 7^th October a peaceful protest took place outside the Maltese Law Courts where ex asylum seekers asked for more rights, and to deal with the feeling of anti Semitism found on the island and which was fueled by the past cry to ‘push-back’. In light of the protests the Maltese government began moving towards a solution.

Malta proposed at an EU Home Affairs Ministers meeting on the 8^th October that a task force should be set up to focus on irregular migration, including tracking down people traffickers who were behind irregular migration. Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia said the reaction was very positive. He said he stressed at the meeting that tragedies such as the one in Lampedusa were an issue, which involved the whole EU, and not any single country. Malta demanded concrete action and insisted that words were not enough.

Malta also argued that the situation in Libya was difficult but it was important for Libya to open up negotiations and that the EU should not give up. Malta again is seen taking its role as the bridge between the EU and Libya.

Since then The European Commission has proposed a Mediterranean-wide search and rescue mission by the European Union to intercept migrant boats presumably prompted by the Lampedusa migrant boat tragedy, which killed more than 230 people. The plan calls for an operation by the Frontex border agency "from Cyprus to Spain", Malstroms spokesman told the BBC. Regardless of this the meeting held by European parliamentarians the following day spoke little of Malta although Malta’s MEPs asked for more holistic approaches. Since then action has been slow, talks for further meetings have been planned but yet tragedies continue to occur as yet other boats capsize claiming more deaths each time. The rescued passengers were split between the Italian and the Maltese rescue team and a hot line was set up to reunite split families or couples. Still on an EU front it was also reported, Saturday 12^th October 2013, that MEP Roberta Metsola has been appointed to form part of a cross-party, high-level delegation of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee of European Parliament that will visit Malta to discuss irregular immigration at the end of this month.

The delegation will visit the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in Malta between October 29 and 30 and will also include Austrian and Dutch MEPs from the Socialists (S&D) and the Liberals (ALDE) groups in the European Parliament.

The MEPs are expected to hold talks with different stakeholders in Malta and will also hold a dialogue with the public. Malta has now also opened bilateral talks with Libya.

On Sunday, 13^th October, a joint press conference between Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muacat at the Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel in Tripoli where the two held. Dr Muscat flew in for the meeting with a delegation that included Foreign Minister George Vella for a symbolic short visit intended to show solidarity with Mr Zeidan and his government after last week he was abducted by militiamen in what was described as an attempted coup.

Dr Muscat said Malta wanted to send a message that it is behind the Libyan people's effort to build a democratic state where the rule of law is paramount.

"We know that the majority of Libyan people do not believe that might is right and that political leadership should be removed with weapons. Governments should only be removed through elections," he said.

Earlier Mr Zeidan said during the meeting that he appreciated the Maltese gesture and felt that it helped take relations between the two governments to a whole new level.

The weekend's tragedy, in which dozens lost their lives when a boat with some 250 refugees capsized 120 miles off Malta, was a focal point in the discussions.

Dr Muscat said the issue of migration in Libya should be discussed in light of the wider security and stability concerns in Libya.

He said Mr Zeidan had put to him serious proposals where Europe could help with security training and access to the EU's satellite system, for instance, and that he would be relaying this message at the forthcoming EU summit dealing with the subject next week.

Mr Zeidan said Libya was in the exact same situation as southern European states, stressing that Libya had not 'opened its doors' to this problem.

He pledged that his Government would do its utmost to secure known hubs for departures like Zuwara, where the migrants from Friday's tragedy left. However, he insisted that Libya needed Europe's help.