Borg briefs House committee on migration issues

Starting talks with Libya on controlling illegal migration had not been easy because too many EU countries wanted to impose too many pre-conditions, based on democracy and human rights, Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg told a meeting of the European and Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

He said the problem of human trafficking across the Mediterranean would ease if the EU could help Libya to control its frontiers better and become the first checkpoint of potential illegal migrants. For, he explained, the immigration problem hardly ever involved Libyans, but mostly people from sub-Saharan Africa who crossed Libya and other countries and then headed across the Mediterranean..

Dr Borg said Malta and Italy were determined to start a programme of joint operations at sea well outside Maltese territorial waters, to better control the flow of illegal immigrants.

He said Malta, Italy and Spain were insisting on a policy of returning migrants to Libya, and there were high hopes for eventual agreement on this. Ways would also be explored of assisting the countries most affected by illegal migration to identify best practices for migrants not holding ID documents.

Answering questions from committee members, Dr Borg said that there were signs of greater EU understanding of the problems of illegal migration since former Italian Foreign Minister Frattini became EU Commissioner for this sector.

In spite of a very low birth rate in Europe and the need for immigration by some countries, the EU still did not have an official immigration policy, and there were EU member countries that did not have a great desire to fight illegal migration.

Dr Borg said Malta was currently home to almost 1,000 migrants who had been granted temporary humanitarian protection and around 150 others who had been released because they had been in custody for too long. All except this last group had a right to work in Malta. An EU directive issued in February 2005 held that if a migrant's case was not finalised, after a year he or she must be given access to the labour market.

Concluding, Dr Borg said that burden sharing in the EU was still poor after 20 years, but it was hoped that the talks with Libya would serve as a catalyst for progress in this area.