The campaign for next month’s MEP elections is in full swing and Malta’s 39 MEP candidates are scrambling to cosy up with voters across the country.

The electoral campaign has, unsurprisingly, been dominated by the Vitals scandal, with the sorry sight of top government officials past and present trudging to court likely to be the defining image of this campaign.

But, in between proclamations about the hospitals saga, candidates have been trying to explain their position on the bread-and-butter issues that they will be facing as MEPs.

An EU study held last month suggested that Maltese voters wanted to know their candidates’ views on various issues including migration, climate, defence and agriculture, before casting their vote.

Where do candidates stand on migration, the issue that Maltese voters, according to Eurobarometer study, highlighted as a top election concern?

Importing foreign workers straining Malta’s infrastructure

Scratch beneath the surface and most parties and candidates seem to diagnose the same problem, saying that Malta’s unbridled immigration policy in recent years has exacerbated the country’s overpopulation and strained Malta’s infrastructure beyond tipping point.

PN has been driving this point home for some time. Candidate Peter Agius sums it up neatly in a clip on his TikTok page, saying “while Malta’s population has spiked, our services and infrastructure have remained the same”.

PL, on the other hand, has pointedly steered clear of the issue of legal migration, with the party’s electoral manifesto making no mention of it, despite dedicating a section to immigration. Instead, it chooses to focus on the shrinking issue of irregular migrants arriving by boat, saying that the party aims to repatriate irregular immigrants by “strengthening legal and diplomatic mechanisms”.

However, some of the party’s individual candidates have touched upon the issue throughout their campaigns. Clint Azzopardi Flores criticised Malta’s “free-for-all system” of importing workers in an interview with Lovin Malta, warning in his manifesto that the abuse of foreign workers needs to remain at the top of Europe’s agenda.

Meanwhile Thomas Bajada, admitted to a crowd at MCAST that Malta had “rushed” its economic growth when asked about the topic, while Steve Ellul, called for “proper controls” on the entry of workers from outside Europe.

The issue is also on the lips of smaller parties and independent candidates.

Increasing the population by 120,000 in five years is a shock- ADPD leader and MEP candidate Sandra Gauzi

ADPD leader and MEP candidate Sandra Gauci recently told the audience at a debate that while “we can’t ridicule or demean” migrants who came to Malta to work, the haphazard manner in which people were brought to Malta was “a mistake”.

“Increasing the population by 120,000 in five years is a shock,” Gauci said.

Conrad Borg Manché strikes a similar tone in one of his campaign videos, saying that population increase is creating “pressure on Malta’s infrastructure”.

Imperium Europa, the far-right party which rose to prominence on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment two decades ago, has a more conspiratorial take on the issue.

Speaking during TV debates and party gatherings, Imperium Europa candidate Terrence Portelli has repeatedly pushed his version of the great replacement theory, an oft-reviled and racist conspiracy theory that claims that ethnic populations are being surreptitiously ousted through migration.

What will candidates do about it if elected?

This is where things get hazier. Most candidates are quick to diagnose the issue but seem to be finding it tricky to explain how they will tackle it once elected.

Independent candidate Arnold Cassola had perhaps the bluntest take on the issue when discussing the issue in a recent interview.

“We need to be realistic about what we can do, we can’t fool people that what we want can automatically happen” Cassola said, pointing to Italian PM Giorgia Meloni who has seen immigration increase under her watch despite being elected on an anti-immigration platform.

Besides, Cassola added, “Malta’s problem is no longer irregular migration, but legal migration”.

And, with legal migration being a domestic, rather than European issue, there is little that any candidate will be able to do about it within the EP.

We need to be realistic about what we can do, we can’t fool people that what we want can automatically happen- Independent candidate Arnold Cassola

The manifesto of the EPP, the grouping of which the PN forms part, makes this much clear, saying that “it is up to the member states to deal with legal migration, determining how it best fits their national interests”.

The manifesto has far more to say about irregular migration, including the proposals made by PN MEP David Casa, going for a fifth term in office, in a joint article written last year with EPP chief Manfred Weber.

Casa had argued that Europe’s approach to migration needs to be two-pronged. Europe must beef up its border security through a European coast guard and by building fences to Europe’s east, all the pushing for greater solidarity across member states, Casa had said.

EP President and PN MEP Roberta Metsola has been equally critical of Europe’s approach to the migration issue over the years. As negotiations for EU’s revised migration pact ramped up late last year, she argued that Europe had failed on the issue. She eventually welcomed the signing of the pact, saying that it would secure Europe’s borders, speed up asylum claims and support border member states.

Maltese voters are at odds with their European counterparts over the top priorities during the upcoming EP election campaign. Photo: Shutterstock.com

But Metsola, together with fellow PN candidates David Agius, Peter Agius, David Casa and Louise Anne Pulis, was more tight-lipped when asked whether they she supported an EPP proposal to outsource asylum claims to ‘safe third countries’, a move akin to the Tory government’s controversial Rwanda plan in the UK.

None of them replied, with a PN spokesperson instead issuing a joint statement saying that migration “is a global challenge that requires a global response”.

The manifesto published by the PES, PL’s political grouping in the European Parliament, makes no mention whatsoever of legal migration, focusing exclusively on asylum and the fight against trafficking.

Leading PL candidate Alex Agius Saliba has frequently spoken about asylum issues throughout his time in office, often criticising the “rhetoric” on irregular migration from the bloc’s extreme-right factions, saying that the bloc had failed to take tangible measures that implement the principle of solidarity.

The EU’s migration pact, introduced later in the same year, was a “step in the right direction”, Agius Saliba told a University debate earlier this year, but did not go far enough to solve the issue.

PL candidate Maria Sara Vella Gafà described immigration as a “major challenge” driving the rise of the far-right across Europe but had little to say about how she plans to address it.

Meanwhile, Claudette Abela Baldacchino, who had made irregular migration one of her calling cards during a previous MEP election run in 2009, didn’t discuss the issue at all when listing her top priorities in an interview with PL portal The Journal earlier this year.