Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1382687
12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 JUNE 2021 NEWS THE same government which an- nounced plans to grant residency per- mits to 'digital nomads' last week, is now denying work permits to asylum seekers hailing from 'safe countries or origin'. But what does this say about the Labour government's commitment towards equality? Last week the government announced a new temporary residency scheme for people who want to move to Malta as a base to work remotely. The programme offers a six-month visa and an option of obtaining a one-year 'Nomad Residence Permit' and costs €300. To qualify, ap- plicants must prove they are contracted to work remotely by a company based overseas, show that they run their own business or offer freelance service to cli- entele based abroad. Already some 1,000 so-called digital nomads have already lived and worked from Malta, with the government hoping to attract between 1,000 to 1,200 applicants a year. Surely nothing wrong with incentives that tap into a niche which further wid- ens Malta's talent pool and diversity, attracting people who spend their in- come here and blend in an increasingly cosmopolitan landscape, albeit one bur- dened by infrastructural and environ- mental pressures from an influx of peo- ple unseen since the times of the Knights of St John. And unlike passport buyers, who do not live in the property they rent or buy, digital nomads may actually want to live and enjoy life here, mingling in the Mal- tese melting pot. But so do thousands of foreign workers and asylum seekers, some of which have done so for decades. Yet the contrast between our 'welcome' to tech-savvy digital nomads associated with the rich part of the globe, and the bureaucratic obstacles faced by other categories of migrants hailing from the global south, flies in the face of a gov- ernment which on paper is committed to 'equality.' More salt was rubbed in the wound a few days later when human rights NGOs lashed out a policy by the home affairs minister to preclude asylum seekers deemed to come from 'safe' countries from legal employment for 9 months. A government source says the ministry is adhering to legal conditions laid down in the minimum standards for asylum, which enforces the ban on employment specifically for so-called 'Dublin' mi- grants – those asylum seekers who ap- plied for asylum in the EU from another point of entry and then travelled on- wards – and other migrants with some form of protection or residence from another EU country. Many of these mi- grants tend to have travelled down from Italy to Malta. But the policy also makes life more dif- ficult for migrants who are not imme- diately returnable when these hail from safe countries of origin, and apply for asylum in Malta. Without the immediate return of Dublin migrants, the deterrent might still risk boosting illegal employ- ment and push hundreds others into destitution. Even although their claims for asylum are often rejected, some immigrants from safe countries do also qualify for protection, such as Kurdish refugees from Turkey, LGBTIQ people hailing from a number of safe countries like Tunisia... yet even if their claims get rejected, such asylum seekers often build meaningful affective relations in Malta, which makes their forced destitution and expulsion painful. Instead of consid- ering an amnesty that normalises the life of people inside a legal limbo and avoid their slippage into an underworld of crime, such policies – even when man- dated by European rules – see intent on making these people's lives hell. Welcome to Malta Maria Pisani, a human rights activists and director of the Integra Foundation, recalls that in all the years she has been working on asylum issues, she never re- calls any government official saying that refugees and asylum seekers are wel- come. "Any reference to asylum seekers living in Malta consistently c o m e s with some or other condition: 'you must integrate, you must change, you must re- spect…' " In contrast, those being offered a 'no- madic residence permit', are "being made welcome in Malta" as stated by parliamentary secretary for citizenship Alex Muscat. Theirs is the cosmopoli- tan Malta, embracing change and out- ward-looking as glorified in Labour's imaginary. Charles Mizzi, CEO of Res- idency Malta, even assures is that the "process is simple", and that digital no- mads can live and work here whilst "en- joying all the perks that Malta offers for- eigners". And all this fits well in Labour's em- brace of a neoliberal world order where wealth creation is concerned, albeit one which retains the redistribution mech- anisms which shelter the native work- force – at least, within the restricted timeframe of electoral cycles before the shit hits the fan with rising property prices and precarious conditions. But Pisani notes that in the popular im- aginary peddled by the government, "the digital nomad is an enigma, embodying the ultimate liberated figure, a consumer in the neoliberal globalised world". They are celebrated for their "flair for travel- ling and discovering new countries and cultures" – as recognised by Alex Mus- cat himself. But their nomadic lives transcend the boundaries of any nation state and con- trol of state apparatus. Digital nomads get to be "subversive, challenging fixed Why does a government which proudly wears the equality badge, offer its carrots to trendy digital 'nomads' and sticks and destitution to other migrants seeking a normal life? Cosmo-inequalities: Digital nomads good, asylum seekers bad JAMES DEBONO "Any reference to asylum seekers living in Malta consistently comes with some or other condition: 'you must integrate, you must change, you must respect…' "