Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/224217
13 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2013 PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD Labour will field the first ever Maltese Muslim to contest the European elections. Is Mario Farrugia Borg a token for a minority vote, or can he offer a national flavour? financial transactions, which is opposed by the local Labour party. In their Alternative Vision for Europe, the European Socialists promise that they "will fight to bring in common company tax rules to simplify the tax law jungle." The European Socialists also refer to the "S&D Group's tough stance on the financial transaction tax" which is described as a "vital way to curb the excesses of financial institutions, ensure they pay their fair share of tax and ease the tax burden on the public". "This is a clear case where Labour puts the national interest first and foremost. This tax would not be in our best interest. It is an unfair tax because what would happen is that investors in this [financial services] sector will simply flee to those countries where they pay less taxes." While Labour supports a quick path to citizenship for the superrich, back in July Joseph Muscat was actively considering pushing back a number of asylum seekers back to Libya. "At the moment we considered everything, but the only pushbacks ever to take place happened under a Nationalist government when people were sent directly back to Eritrea during the Fenech Adami administration," Farrugia Borg says, repeating the mantra now adopted by Labour. What counts for Farrugia Borg is that Labour, unlike Nationalist governments, has succeeded in inserting Malta's migration challenge on the EU agenda. "We are saying it clearly to other European countries, that we cannot face the problem alone and we cannot deal with the influx of hundreds and thousands of immigrants." For Farrugia Borg, who is married to a Moroccan-born wife, the whole issue boils down to numbers and has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia, which he unreservedly condemns. "As the Prime Minister pointed out, integration will only work if the numbers are brought under control. To have integration you must have sustainable numbers. You cannot have thousands of migrants. " To prove his point he compares the integration of migrants in Balzan and Marsa. "I recently attended a seminar where the mayors of Marsa and Balzan spoke as if they lived in two entirely different planets. While the Balzan mayor spoke about a high level of integration and the good relationship between Maltese families and immigrant families, the Marsa mayor spoke about the Maltese being terrorized. The sheer difference is in numbers. In Balzan there are 150 migrants and in Marsa there are 1,500." He also underlines his argument by insisting that that one "should call a spade a spade, and call the phenomenon illegal immigration." I immediately point out that immigrants rescued on the high seas and who seek asylum in Malta are not committing any crime and therefore the term "illegal" simply reinforces the kind of prejudice which makes integration even more difficult. "The fact is that you can only enter a country legally by passing through customs and having one's passport signed. Entering Malta on a boat is an illegal act." But Farrugia admits that if he were himself a father in Somalia or Eritrea, he would do exactly the same illegal act to offer a better future to his family. He also points out that nobody takes the risk of crossing the dangerous seas without being forced to so by circumstances. But concretely what can Malta achieve more than it has already achieved, in view of the opposition by a number of member states to the idea of burden sharing? Farrugia Borg insists that the first priority should be for Europe to invest in Europe so that Africans do not have to leave their homeland. "We should not forget that in the 1950s many Maltese who emigrated to Australia and other countries could not stay here because the country did not offer them a future. It was only thanks to the attraction of investment under Mintoff, that emigration stopped." Farrugia Borg's more short-term proposal is to establish a UNHCR office in Libya through which asylum claims can be processed in that country, and successful candidates would be able to cross to Europe safely and legally, and divided between member states according to a still inexistent burden sharing agreement. I immediately point out that Libya is in chaos and cannot be regarded as a safe place for migrants. "That's why it is in our interest that stability is restored in this country. For if we achieve this aim we would be stopping the dangerous voyages taking place in the Mediterranean."