European countries must work together to create a “more orderly” migration system that respects humanitarian standards and ensures solidarity between member states, Germany’s Minister for Europe said during a visit to Malta.
“That clearly means we cannot let people drown in the Mediterranean,” Anna Lührmann said, noting that the EU was working to find common ground.
“This is an important issue, because this is a European issue. We’re talking about access to the Schengen area, so it’s not a bilateral issue or an issue for one country alone… we’re in this boat together,” she said.
The minister was in Malta to meet government officials and discuss topics ranging from Migration to European affairs, energy and climate change.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday afternoon, Lührmann said that Germany has offered to collaborate with Malta to help return failed asylum seekers to their countries of origin and was also keen on seeing Malta join a voluntary solidarity mechanism spearheaded by France last year.
She however acknowledged the difficulty of that happening, noting that Malta would need to allow private vessels to disembark asylum seekers rescued at sea in order to do so.
Malta has adopted a hardline stance on migration in recent years, seizing NGO vessels, detaining asylum seekers at sea and facing accusations that it is ignoring distress calls sent out by drowning migrants.
The government has said that the country is “full up”. Migrant arrivals by sea have dropped dramatically since peaking in 2019, with fewer than 300 people being brought to Malta last year.
Lührmann noted that Europe needed migrants to support its ageing workforce, and said European countries could do more to provide would-be migrants with more legal pathways to entering the EU.
Energy and climate change
The minister also spoke about energy and climate change, and noted that renewable energy has dramatically dropped in price and was now the “cheapest” form of energy in Germany.
Demand for solar panels there outstripped supply, she said, with waiting times of more than a year in some cases.
She noted that Malta is reportedly exploring the possibility of offshore floating windfarms and said all European countries had a part to play in making Europe “the first climate-neutral continent”.
In Lührmann’s mind, however, achieving that goal will not involve nuclear power.
Germany has been gradually phasing out its nuclear reactors, following a policy pledge made in 2011, days after the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan’s Fukushima.
Nuclear power, Lührmann said, posed a security threat as reactors serve as targets for terrorists and during times of war, presented the problem of how to dispose of their radioactive waste and are not as reliable as they are made out to be.
“In France, half of the nuclear power plants are not working as they require maintenance,” she claimed. “We don’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire.”