Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1179886
25 OPINION European issues, which are having a seriously detrimen- tal effect of national security in European member states. (No, not even when the job of a European interior minister is actually to address security issues… and certainly not to 'have lunch'). Meanwhile, it seems that the wine served up at this marathon EU pie-eating contest must have been pretty heady stuff, too… consider- ing that by the time the meal was over, some of the diners evidently forgot what they had told us just four weeks earlier. Let's go back to that 23 September press confer- ence, here in Malta. Ger- man Minister Seehofer had said: "We are inviting other member states to come on board with this agreement." We were also told that: "A common paper drawn up at the meeting will be presented in Luxembourg on 8 October during a Council meeting for Home Affairs. The paper will be presented to the Interior Ministers of the other 24 member states…" And yet – emerging from what turned out to be a marathon face-stuffing event instead – European Com- missioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos told journal- ists that Member States were "not asked to make any com- mitment". Erm… sorry, but wasn't that the whole point of the 8 October meeting in the first place? To ask for an inter- national commitment to the 'deal' agreed in Malta two weeks before? That is certainly what we had been told; and that is how it was reported in all local newspapers. Yet now they tell us that this 'deal' wasn't even presented to the rest of the 24 European interior min- isters for their approval. All those dissenting countries I mentioned above – "Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, etc." – they weren't even asked to sign up to it at all. So… um… what did Avramoupolus find this time to ask them, in between fork- fuls of whatever he ordered from the set menu? Let me guess: 'Pass the salt?', per- haps? Or: 'Can you catch the waiter's eye, because my wine-glass is almost emp- ty…?' OK, by now you will have worked out that I am ex- tremely pissed off about this latest, farcical disappoint- ment. Not just because it is, to my mind, downright criminal to lie so baldly to a country like that – to deliber- ately raise expectations for a breakthrough on this seem- ingly insoluble problem… only to later turn around and say, "That? Oh, that was just [burp!] an excuse for us to all get together for a good, slap- up meal… why, you didn't really think [hic!] we were being serious about 'agree- ing on a deal', did you? And now, if you don't mind, I have another restaurant to go to…" No, there is another, far weightier reason for my off- pissedness. It's because of how we always react to this kind of development: how we never vent any of our (en- tirely justified) frustration on the people who truly deserve to taste our anger – i.e., the European Commissioners and/or Interior Ministers, who not only lie directly to our faces, but also make an open spectacle of their utter disdain for the devastating effects of their own apathy and greed – but how we always somehow always take it out on the victims of this appalling, criminal behaviour instead. Poor, homeless African peo- ple. That's who we blame for Europe's complete and utter failure to ever treat this issue with the seriousness it de- serves. Those are the people we threaten to punish, im- prison or deport – if not actu- ally kill, 'Hitler-style' – and not the ones who are directly responsible for the fact that they are even here at all. This is, indeed, the crown- ing irony of the entire situa- tion: the 'cherry', as it were, on the 'cake' that Europe's Interior Ministers probably ordered for dessert. A great many of those poor, homeless African people we all blame for the crisis wouldn't, in fact, 'be here at all'… if European ministers actually did the job we pay them to do, instead of wining and dining themselves silly at every conceivable oppor- tunity. Some of those asylum seekers would already have been relocated elsewhere, if European ministers actually bothered themselves with 'deals' instead of 'meals'. And none of them would pose even a fraction of the 'threat' so many people seem to think they pose… if there really was "a set of 'predictable and structural' arrangements for the disembarkation and relocation of migrants", of the kind we were told was already 'agreed to' on September 23. Yet we still blame asylum seekers – and only asylum seekers – for a crisis brought on directly by the incompe- tence, nonchalance, and sheer 'couldn't-care-less' attitude of the politicians we rely on to solve all our migration and national security problems (but who are really the cause of all these problems to begin with). And if that doesn't piss you off, too… well, not that it's any of my business, but I'd recommend visiting a doc- tor. You might have a bladder problem… maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 OCTOBER 2019 Yet we still blame asylum seekers – and only asylum seekers – for a crisis brought on directly by the incompetence, nonchalance, and sheer 'couldn't-care-less' attitude of the politicians we rely on to solve all our migration and national security problems (but who are really the cause of all these problems to begin with) eCourts.gov.mt VIŻITATUR FIX-XAHAR QEGĦDIN JIBBENEFIKAW MINN DAN IS-SERVIZZ AKTAR MINN Court Services Agency Agenzija ghas-Servizzi tal-Qrati MINISTERU GĦALL-ĠUSTIZZJA, KULTURA U GVERN LOKALI skopri iktar hawn C M Y CM MY CY CMY K ICT Oct-Nov Advert 1.pdf 1 25/10/2019 10:05