Maltese want harsher rules

Among the 10 new member states of the European Union, Malta is the country with the highest number of people favouring harsher anti-immigration rules.

This emerges from an EU-wide perceptions survey conducted to gauge citizens' preferences with regard to a multi- cultural society.

According to the report 39.7 per cent of the Maltese favour the repatriation of legal migrants. They are followed by the Latvians, with 30.3 per cent of the population being in favour.

The survey, included in a report by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, examined the attitudes towards minorities, asylum seekers and immigrants, as expressed across Europe in 2003.

The report was drafted for the centre by a research team from the University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, who analysed data from the 2003 Eurobarometer survey and the 2003 European Social Survey on attitudes towards minorities and migrants in different European countries.

According to the report, many of the exclusionist stances were strongly favoured by the people living in the Baltic states, particularly in Estonia and Latvia, but also those living in Cyprus and Malta. Countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria tend to score consistently low in this regard.

Malta was singled out particularly in two instances with regard to immigration. The Maltese, together with the Estonians, express the strongest support for the idea that the multicultural society has reached its limits. Together with Latvia, Malta is described as the country mostly opposed to the granting of civil rights to legal migrants.

Support for more severe policy measures towards the repatriation of legal migrants is also highest in Malta, among the 13 countries surveyed.

The report also reveals that only a minority in Malta think that migrants living on the island should give up their religious and cultural practices for the sake of conforming to the law and conventions of Maltese society. The view about this aspect is much stronger in the Baltic states.

When one takes into account the general picture within the EU, the report shows that the Greeks, the Estonians and the Latvians are the most resistant to a multicultural society.

Almost 80 per cent of the survey's respondents across the EU had no problem interacting with minorities but almost half of them adopted a critical attitude towards cultural and religious diversity. Half of the EU citizens demonstrated a negative attitude to immigrants - this mainly in Greece, Hungary and Austria - and about a third of them said they were opposed to asylum seekers, with Belgium, the UK and Hungary on top of the list.

The report suggested that richer countries showed more tolerance and respect to cultural and religious diversities.

The opinions also differed at various societal levels - with young people and citizens with better income and education expressing more open and supportive attitudes towards ethnic, cultural and religious differences.