Malta: Open borders creates multitude of problems
April 23, 2009
Over the last decade, EU countries have experienced a rapid rise in both legal and illegal immigration, mostly from Turkey and Eastern Europe (Albania and Serbia leak massively) and North Africa. Each spring and summer, Malta and other Mediterranean states struggle to cope as migrants perish attempting to reach Europe in unseaworthy and overcrowded boats. The deaths recently of 300 people, who drowned while trying to reach Italy from Libya, marked a particularly grim beginning to this year's smuggling season.
Finally the EU is not only waking up to the problem, but it has admittedly given it top priority status in a way. Ministers now believe that collective EU action is needed if immigration is to be managed better. That means making European border management more effective by integrating visas, border controls, the resettlement of refugees and the return of illegal immigrants into EU foreign policy.
In other words, having opened its borders through Schengen, locally trumpeted as another great achievement, the EU now finds it has little idea where immigrants go next after crossing its porous borders. They do not know how many of these immigrants move to other EU countries, how many go back home and how many are granted residency.
The Malta Independent
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