Main focus of Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Immigration puts European solidarity to the test

Gathered in Luxemburg on Tuesday, June 12, European interior ministers did not support Malta's proposition aimed to divide the number of illegal immigrants saved at sea among the 27 Member States. The European press comments on this refusal.

Times of Malta - Malta

"The proposal by Malta for member states [made by Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg] to share the burden, when illegal immigrants are saved in international and third country search and rescue (SAR) waters, received a lukewarm response by EU Justice Ministers yesterday", notes the daily. " [Borg] proposed an agreement among EU member states, whereby illegal immigrants saved at sea by EU-registered vessels in the SAR region of a non-EU state that refuses to shoulder its responsibilities, would be shared by EU member states on a strictly proportional basis and according to a pre-accepted system. He also proposed that ... the number of immigrants so received would be deducted from the immigrants/refugees quota a receiving EU country might have agreed with the UNHCR [the UN refugee agency]." (13/06/2007)

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El País - Spain

"The EU seems set on slowing down the flow of illegal immigrants by reinforcing border control, but mostly by demanding greater cultural and social integration of the foreign community as well as by making it more difficult to obtain residence permits and request naturalisation", explains the daily. It has drawn up a list of reforms applied to this end in France, Germany and the UK. "The EU has not, however, accepted Malta's request to create a system that distributes the immigrants saved at sea among Member States. Harshly affected by illegal immigrants, Spain is one of the rare countries to understand this initiative. But seeing as the 27 have not reached an agreement, it would be preferable for the Valetta government to imitate Madrid's policy, negotiating the repatriation of immigrants with the African countries they come from." (13/06/2007)

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Süddeutsche Zeitung - Germany

The German daily harshly criticises Europe's refugee policy: "Europe has closed its doors. The number of applications for asylum in the EU has gone down to a third of what it was ten years ago; in Germany the number of asylum seekers hasn't been this low since 1984. Far away from Berlin, refugees are washed up on the coast of Andalusia, dead or alive. And boats full of people half-dead from thirst float in the waters around Malta... The motto of the EU's refugee policy is: out of sight, out of mind. Those refugees from Africa who do manage to survive often don't get any further than Malta. But the states of Central Europe won't even think about setting quotas for the distribution of these refugees to spread the burden more equally. A proposal for such a policy has just been flatly refused. Malta is on its own." (13/06/2007)

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