Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1237083
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 APRIL 2020 OPINION EARLIER this week, it was re- ported that Opposition leader Adrian Delia held a 'telecon- ference' with European Com- missioner for Immigration Yl- va Johansson, on the subject of… well, her own Commission portfolio, as it happens. (For though the Commission now argues that 'immigration' is not its within its own remit… sorry, but it is. And there is a moun- tain of evidence to prove it.) But one step at a time. From the news report, it seems that Delia must have done an awful lot of talking in that conference: so much so, that the media only reported what he told the Euro- pean Commissioner… and not (as one would also justifiably expect) what she said to him in reply. For instance: Delia reportedly told Johansson "that Maltese reception centres for asylum seekers were overcrowded and that the country's resourc- es were under pressure"; and asked her "to enforce a man- datory distribution of asylum seekers among European mem- ber states, as well as to imme- diately repatriate failed asylum claimants." And… erm… that's it, really. There was no indication of how the Immigration Commission- er actually responded to De- lia's demands - beyond a very vague allusion (coming once again from Delia himself, and not from any official EU source) that "Johansson had committed to insist for [sic] an immediate establishment of a redistribu- tion process, at European level." Mind you, there could be en- tirely practical reasons for this. From my own experience, I can confirm that it is actually quite difficult to get a word in edge- ways, once Adrian Delia gets on a roll (seriously, though: that guy can talk the ears off a don- key…). But in this particular scenario – i.e., a full-blown humanitari- an crisis on the EU's southern border, in which up to 12 peo- ple have already died – such dif- ficulties can hardly be used as an excuse for the Commission to simply avoid discussing the problem altogether. After all, European citizens are entitled to an official expla- nation of what the European Commission itself intends to do about this crisis… as opposed to what people like Adrian Delia think it should be doing (which, in reality, is just a wish-list: no more, no less). Nor does it help much that, under scrutiny, Delia's 'wish- list' turns out to be just an ump- teenth repetition of the same official demands made by suc- cessive governments of Malta (and also Italy) for the past 15 years at least. That's how long Malta has been crying out for a 'mandatory distribution of asy- lum seekers among European member states'; and that, too, is how long our appeals have been falling on deaf ears in Brussels. But in any case: neither 'bur- den sharing' nor 'repatriation' has any real relevance to the immediate crisis at hand… which is actually caused by our collective failure to agree upon whose responsibility it is to res- cue those people to begin with. It is this disagreement – and not the other one about 'bur- den sharing' - that has result- ed in all those people stranded on the open sea for days; so as far as I can see, any talk of what happens to them after they've been rescued is neither here nor there… given that, as things stand, nobody seems willing to actually go out and rescue them anyway. So I, for one, am very curious to hear what Ylva Johansson – as opposed to Adrian Delia – would have to say about the matter: for she, and no one else, is the 'European Commissioner for Home Affairs' (including immigration); and it cannot be that the one person who is sup- posedly responsible for the is- sue at European Union level, is also the one person whose voice we quite simply never hear at all. Well… almost never. For this week, The Times also reported that "The European Commis- sion has said it is up to Malta and Italy to find a solution for who will take in migrants stuck out at sea"; and that, as such, "it would not weigh in on the dis- embarkation of migrants cross- ing the Mediterranean." To date, this solitary state- ment is the closest thing I have seen to any formal pronounce- ment by the European Commis- sion about the ongoing crisis: and it happens to chime in with the Commission's attitude to- wards pretty much every other crisis or problem it is occasion- ally called on to deal with from time to time. 'Not our problem'. It seems that, whenever things go wrong… it is never the fault of the European Commission (for, say, not doing its job proper- ly); but by a remarkable coin- cidence, it always turns out to be the sole responsibility of the individual member states con- cerned. How terribly convenient, I must say. Unfortunately for Mrs Johansson, however… in this particular case, it is also highly questionable, to say the least. Let's take a quick look at what the European Commission's re- sponsibilities actually are, shall we? On its own website – under the section 'A fresh start on mi- gration' (if you please) – there is a rather clear list of objectives, including: "Developing a New Pact on Migration and Asylum, strengthening external borders, reforming asylum, readmission and return rules, promoting integration and ensuring real legal pathways to the EU […]"; "Developing a more sustain- able, reliable and permanent approach to search and rescue", and; "Implementing a reinforced European Border and Coast Guard Agency, to help secure strong external borders." (Note: there are others, but they are not directly concerned with search and rescue, and therefore not really relevant at this stage). Now let's take them one by one. The first ('Developing a New Pact on Migration and Asylum') is effectively what Adrian Delia… and Robert Ab- ela... and Joseph Muscat... and Lawrence Gonzi, etc… have all been insisting on since around 2005, if not earlier. And the car- dinal point concerns 'reforming asylum, readmission and return rules': in other words, updating the Dublin 2 agreement of 2003. Clearly, then, by its own ad- mission the European Com- mission is already committed (on paper) to revise the rules governing rescue at sea… with particular emphasis on the thorny question of where peo- ple should be disembarked after being rescued. And while Jo- hansson herself has admittedly only been Commissioner since last July, it is not unreasonable to ask what, if anything, the new Commission has actually done about it since then. To put that another way: we can all see with our own eyes that the Commission has failed in that objective… but how hard did it even try? And is it in the Commission's own interest to even try at all? Ah, there's the rub. Much as I hate to say it, the answer ap- pears to be 'no'. It is clearly not in the interest of the European Commission to revise a treaty which saddles individual mem- ber states with all the respon- sibility for search and rescue - and, even more so, where those people disembark, and conse- quently where their asylum ap- plications get processed - while allowing the Commission itself to keep getting away with doing virtually nothing at all. But it is point number two – 'developing a more sustain- able, reliable and permanent approach to search and rescue' – where the Commission's fail- ures become most evident. This is, in fact, the entire crux of the matter. Very clearly, the Com- mission has NOT developed any new approach to search and rescue: for, as already explained, the actual rules of engagement Raphael Vassallo 'Not our problem' is not exactly an answer… Does the Commission seriously expect Malta (with its grand total of 10 patrol boats) and Italy (currently grappling with a plague of quasi- Biblical proportions) to secure the entire southern frontier of the EU… singlehandedly?