Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1245222
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 MAY 2020 OPINION when we hold our own govern- ment guilty of what is after all exactly the same crime: 'push- backs' (or 'refoulement', to use the UN-approved term). I mean… how ironic is that? But that was just an aside. Meanwhile, the complete ab- sence of any pan-European life-saving operation in the Mediterranean (of the kind we were after all promised after the 2013 tragedy) even prompted individual NGOs to fill the void themselves: stepping in to fulfil all those maritime life-saving obligations that virtually every single EU member state had simply abdicated. And yet, for all this… here we still are: expecting the EU to suddenly sit up and take notice, because another 160 people happen to be stranded at sea, while European coun- tries squabble over whose re- sponsibility it is to take them in. (As has already happened so often, in so many other 'mi- grant stand-offs', without ever resulting in a lasting agreement on relocation). Hmm, I don't know. What sense could there possibly be, in a strategy that hinges on something as perfectly non-ex- istent as 'the EU's concern for the welfare of asylum seekers trying to cross the Mediterra- nean'? (Especially when – un- like the case with those in gen- uine danger/distress – there is no immediate threat to their lives at all?) Ah, but… to be honest, that last part remains to be seen. No immediate threat from starva- tion or dehydration, perhaps. But committing suicide? Self- harm due to depression? Or even just accidentally falling overboard and drowning? Has enough thought been given to considerations such as these, I wonder, when deciding on a policy to hold so many people out at sea… indefinitely? Now: that may sound like a purely humanitarian concern – because, quite frankly, that's what it is – but it also has a di- rect bearing on the strategy's chances of success. OK, I'll try and keep this part brief: Malta might think it is the one putting pressure on the EU here: but as time wears on, and the EU continues to ignore our demands – and all along, those people remain stuck out there: developing all the physi- cal and psychological problems you'd expect, given the circum- stances – I somehow suspect that the opposite will increas- ingly become true. It will be Malta – and not the EU – to find itself under mounting pressure: from the press, from other governments, from international human rights organisations, you name it… all due to growing concerns for the welfare of people who (however much the govern- ment tries to argue otherwise) will inevitably – and rightly – be perceived as 'hostages'. How long, then, can we re- alistically expect the Maltese government to stick to its guns, in the face of an unwavering – and clearly unperturbed – EU? If the answer really is, as they said: 'until a European solution is found to the problem'… well, we all know from past experi- ence that means 'forever'. Hence the final, and most glaring irony of them all. In the end, Malta may well find itself being held hostage by its own foreign policy strategy… un- able to back down for fear of losing face; yet unable to move forward for lack of any visible exit strategy (still less, any suc- cessful negotiation of a Euro- pean agreement at the end of it all). I don't know about you: but, strategically-speaking, that's not a position I would willingly put myself into. Malta has been practically begging the EU for a 'relocation agreement' for well over 15 years now… to no avail. Admittedly, it was the EU's very intransigence that precipitated such drastic action from Malta in the first place…