Affiliated with the University of Nicosia |
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FRONTEX MISSIONS AND BURDEN SHGARING
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Director, European Documentation & Research Center, University of Malta |
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The illegal immigration
phenomenon is affecting all EU Mediterranean countries though the impact
varies from country to country. Last March, Malta announced that it will
not host any FRONTEX (EU border agency) missions to patrol the central
Mediterranean with the aim of discouraging illegal immigration. The
decision was taken following a not so attention-pulling vote on the new
FRONTEX guidelines in the European Parliament on 25 March, which
rejected the rules
by 336 to 253 with 30 abstentions. However, an
absolute majority of all EP Members, 369 votes, was required in order to
block the new guidelines.
The new rules require,
that
if it is not possible to
return migrants picked up by FRONTEX vessels to the country they left
from, they must be sent to the country hosting the FRONTEX mission.
Malta insists that if migrants cannot be sent to their point of
departure, they should be sent to the nearest harbour.
To
understand the Maltese perspective one needs first of all to
contextualize it within the Maltese realities. The islands of Malta,
strategically situated in the middle of the Mediterranean have a land
area of 315 km² and a population of around 413,609 which make their
population density a staggering 1,309 persons per km², the highest in
the EU and one of the highest in the world. Malta is struggling to
accommodate the irregular immigrants that have arrived on its shores.
The
international media has often criticized Malta when the Maltese
authorities declined to take on migrants rescued at sea or to take
responsibility for migrants rescued by non-Maltese registered vessels or
to rescue migrants who were in manifest danger within Malta’s Search and
Rescue Area which is roughly the size of Britain. Pictures of illegal
immigrants clinching to tuna cages in the middle of the Mediterranean
waiting for someone to rescue them are not only tragic but make more
eye-catching headlines then the more destructive, silent arms trade with
developing countries and economic exploitation that force these poor
human beings to risk life and limb to reach Europe. At the centre of
this lucrative ‘business’ are the big states of Europe, while at the
centre of the immigration drama being played out in the Mediterranean
sea we find a couple of small EU states notably Malta, Cyprus and
Greece. That explains the media’s double standards.
In
the run up to the 2009 European elections Italy and Malta frequently
exchanged criticism on who should take responsibility for migrants
rescued at sea and relations between these two long-term allies were
strained. But Italy in its present right-wing phase is more interested
in getting its hands on Malta’s search and rescue area. Organized crime
networks control the illicit migration trade and the Maltese have
neither constructed these networks nor have they the full means to
combat them.
The
insecurity that illegal human flows causes to a small population the
size of Malta’s, the fears – whether realistic or not – of being
swamped, have hardly been addressed. This sense of insecurity has been
strengthened by the failure of the “pilot project” launched by the
Commission in 2009 for voluntary “burden sharing”.
Malta does not want to become the security outpost, a kind of “white
man’s’ Fort Apache” of the empire and shoulder the full burden alone
while paying the economic price and the social dislocation that
uncontrolled immigration brings to all societies particularly the
smallest of them.
Immigration is also playing havoc with internal politics. Not only has
it become a political football to be kicked around by all the parties in
their constant search for advantage over their rivals, but it is causing
politics to swerve to the extreme right. Such extremist policies are not
known to promote the fine distinctions that need to be made in such
situations so that a just solution could be found. Those of us old
enough to recall the open arms with which the Maltese greeted and
accommodated a few hundreds of the estimated 70,000 Asian citizens
kicked out of Uganda by the dictator Idi Amin in the 1970s can compare
that situation with the present public mood.
In
the 2009 European elections, extreme right, anti-immigrant parties
doubled their votes though this was insufficient for them to win a
parliamentary seat. Other political forces in an effort to stop voters
from shifting to these parties have been trying to steal their clothes
by promising tough measures on immigration.
Malta does not want to shift responsibility on to the rest of the EU
member states for this problem, but it clearly does not wish to take on
more than it can chew or assume responsibilities that can rock the
foundations of its small society, possibly also threaten its identity.
Hence Malta has been appealing for solidarity from other member states
and for burden-sharing.
In
June 2009, the European Council called
for the coordination of voluntary measures for internal
reallocation of beneficiaries of international protection present in the
Member States exposed to specific and disproportionate pressures and
highly vulnerable persons. It welcomed the start of a pilot project for
Malta and urged the rapid establishment of the European Asylum Support
Office, which has since been established in Malta – though it is not
fully-functioning yet.
The European
Council also underlined the need for strengthened border control
operations coordinated by FRONTEX, clear rules of engagement for joint
patrolling and the disembarkation of rescued persons as well as the
increased use of joint return flights. It also called for strong action
to fight effectively against organised crime and criminal networks
involved in trafficking human
beings.
Is Malta Exaggerating?
Recently the European Parliament published a report entitled “What
System of Burden-sharing between member states for the reception of
asylum seekers?” The study co-authored by
Dr Eiko Thielemann, Richard Williams and Dr Christina
Boswell (available at www.
europarl.europa.eu/studies) found among other things, that when
the current burdens in the member states are compared to the national
capacity to receive asylum seekers, using wealth, population and
population density as criteria to measure these, Malta is carrying by
far a disproportionate burden.
In terms of
costs, Malta’s burden is one thousand times greater than Portugal’s.
Other countries that were found to be shouldering a burden, albeit lower
than Malta’s, include Cyprus and Greece. On the other hand, many other
EU member states were found to be carrying much below their capacity.
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International Affairs Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved
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