Ceclia Malmström's commitment

Last week I participated in the hearing of Cecilia Malmström who is the Commissioner-designate for Home Affairs, which includes immigration.

I would like to share my question to Malmström so that readers can get a first-hand idea of her perspective and her priorities.

In my question, I pointed out that, each year, hundreds of boats leave the African coast on a clandestine and perilous trip to Europe, organised by criminal networks. This is something that is scandalous in the twenty-first century and it brings about two grave consequences.

The first is a human tragedy with hundreds of people drowning every year. The second is a disproportionate burden on Southern EU countries that save the immigrants at sea, host them and see to their needs.

I told Ms Malmström that the people of these EU countries expect a clear commitment from her to put a stop to this human tragedy and to this illegal route once and for all.

Here is Cecilia Malmström's reply, which I am reproducing verbatim so that you can assess her thinking and reach your own conclusions.

"Thank you very much, Mr Busuttil. I agree with you that we see a lot of horrible tragedies in the Mediterranean, and of course this must be stopped.

Europe has a responsibility to receive and to give shelter to those who need protection under the Geneva Convention and the principle of asylum and refoulement. But in order to defend that policy we must also fight against irregular migration and organised trafficking and smuggling, because this is happening a lot. I do not know if I can handle this alone, but I am ready to work with you to decrease this and to tackle this problem.

We need to reinforce Frontex. We will strengthen Frontex.

We need to increase solidarity between the Member States in order to share the responsibility. We will very soon have in place the Asylum Office, based in Malta, which will be helpful in facilitating this.

We have various resettlement programmes. There is the Malta project that will be evaluated very soon. Maybe we could turn this into something more stable and permanent.

I will look into that as soon as we have the evaluation.

We must also, of course, work very closely with third countries in order to see how we can involve neighbouring countries around the Mediterranean - transit countries - in this work to stop illegal trafficking.

Of course we must also have a global approach. Migration has been with us since Adam and Eve, and it will continue as long as there are differences in political systems and economic development between countries. So there is also a very broad foreign policy dimension in trying to support democracy, human rights and economic development in these countries. It is a very broad and complex question, but I am ready to work with the Parliament and with you in order to tackle this problem."

The new point in her response was her reference to Malta's pilot project becoming permanent. So in my supplementary I reminded her that the project still rested on voluntary participation and I asked her what she was prepared to do to ensure that solidarity truly works in practice.

Here is Malmström's reply to my second question.

"I think we have gone quite far when it comes to solidarity. In just the last two years we have developed quite a lot. We will hopefully soon have the Asylum Office in place. We have quite a lot of money in Frontex and in the Border Control Fund; it has increased tremendously these last years.

We have this (Malta) project with nine countries involved; I had hoped there would be more countries, but it is a good start and we can see how we can maybe make this more a permanent project using different means.

I will also put forward proposals on how to strengthen Frontex, with increasing pressure for Member States to really participate and to meet their commitments there and to fulfil the Immigration and Asylum Pact. All Member States have committed to that.

You and I know very well that the moods in the different countries differ on this and on their willingness, so we can only work together to reinforce this and try to provide as many concrete tools as possible for them to show solidarity not only in theory but also in practice.

The Commission will put forward as many of the tools that
I just outlined as possible."

I cannot say that I am fully convinced with these replies because we have heard this before. But at least, it was an honest reply and Malmström transmitted a feeling that she is prepared to plunge into her portfolio with energy and goodwill.

She will need a lot of both and I will be following her work very closely.

Published: The Times: Wednesday, 27 January 2010