Malta respects freedom of movement principles, however the implementation of such principles needs to change in a bid to ensure the security of European citizens, according to the Prime Minister.

“We need to strengthen the controls of people outside of the Schengen area and the movement of those within the area… The danger is going for the extremes – from no controls at all to putting up walls and barriers. The two extremes are wrong and we need to go for a sense of balance,” Joseph Muscat said as he addressed a Meusac meeting ahead of the European Council meeting on December 17.

The agenda includes discussions on migration and the UK requests for EU reform before it holds a referendum about its EU membership. 

Dr Muscat said Malta agreed in broad terms for the call for more flexibility in the EU as there was no one size that fit all.

"We are not one country, but a group of countries," he said.

However, flexibility should be for all, and Malta was not in favour of a concession for the UK only.

When it comes to the Eurozone, Malta did not favour “in and out conditions”, where those within the Eurozone had more rigid conditions and those out of the Eurozone had more room for manoeuvre.

Finally, whatever is agreed upon should not lead to a treaty change, Dr Muscat said, noting Malta had “insisted vigorously” against such change.

Referring to last week’s attacks in Paris, he said the attack had been on European lifestyle and the worst thing to do was to change our lifestyle as a result of fear.

The alleged attackers were born and brought up in Europe. The phenomenon of young people’s attraction to extremism seemed to be a result of a failure of the politics of inclusion in some countries that over the past years saw the ghettoism of some cultures, he said.