Prime Minister Joseph Muscat addressed the United Nations General Assembly this evening, insisting that while priority should be to save lives, efforts must be stepped up to hold the people-traffickers to account.

He called for international joint criminal investigations and stronger penalties to punish people smugglers. 

It also needed to be made clear, he said, that a free-for-all policy for migrants was not on the table and migrants not entitled for shelter should be returned.

"We have to continue doing our best to give shelter to those fleeing from war and qualify for asylum. But it must also be clear that a free-for-all policy is not on the table. People who do not qualify for asylum should be returned. Safe countries of origin which do not help in return should face sanctions. Those which collaborate should be rewarded with further aid and access to markets."

The international community, he said, also needed to tackle the root causes of migration, he said. That did not only mean solving the problems in Syria, but other countries such as Somalia, he said.

"We need tools and institutions to set out rules and tackle the phenomenon on a permanent basis. Not simply as a humanitarian effort, but as an economic, social and environmental framework to anticipate and manage these flows.

"I come from a family of nations that has been very much in the news for failing to agree unanimously on a mandatory distribution system for refugees. I was one of the most vociferous critics in Europe indicating our failures. Nevertheless I stand in front of you today as a proud European.

"Can anyone mention to me any other group of nations that has gone so far as to agreeing, albeit with considerable birth pangs and bruises, to such a system? There is none. Only Europe did it so far. So I ask, ‘Where is everyone else?’

"We made a first step. Now the global community has to follow. The United Nations is the forum to do that.

"At the end of World War II, nation states realised that their financial system was broken and they could no longer aspire to operate in a vacuum. The Bretton Woods agreement lay the basis for rules and institutions to tackle the new reality. We now need a Bretton Woods of migration.

"Rules and institutions that see all the members of the international community, and not just the few, share and shoulder the phenomenon of mass migration with both legal channels and instruments to deal with crises. In other words, there should not be a European quota but a global quota system for migrants, for not only this but all crises. I urge for such a discussion to begin. Let us not let people smugglers decide for us. Let us read the writing on the wall and lay the foundations to this new system," Dr Muscat said.

In other parts of his speech Dr Muscat referred to the 1988 initiative by late Foreign Minister Censu Tabone for the climate to be recognised as the common heritage of mankind.  

"The impacts of climate change require a global and coordinated response. Malta was the first to alert the international community to the need to address the warnings on human-induced climate change by the scientific community.

Now we aspire to being one facilitator, among others, in securing an equitable deal."

Read the speech in full on pdf below.