Comments about migration and TCNs in Malta

James Cummings writing on Times of Malta (March) said that Malta welcomed roughly 75 per cent more migrants per capita than any other EU member state in 2023, according to recent data. Another, Times of Malta exercise compares the number of immigrants per capita with the proportion of those entering from outside the EU. It shows Malta saw an estimated 60 TCN migrants per capita move to the country in 2023, around six times the EU average. That year, some 76 migrants moved locally for every 1,000 people in the population, quoting a recent Eurostat data.

This was significantly higher than other member states in the EU, with second-highest Cyprus reporting 43 new immigrants per 1,000 people, Luxembourg was third, recording 40 immigrants per capita, followed by Spain and Ireland, both taking in around 26. Even so, as regards migrants arriving by sea (not those contracted by temping agencies) one reads about leaked documents from an EU military operation. These criticise Malta saying it “refuses” to participate in migrant rescue missions in its designated search and rescue area. An internal memo from the EU’s special naval mission in the Mediterranean, known as IRINI, references what it terms as Malta’s lack of cooperation in migrant rescue operations.

In reaction to the memo, a spokesperson for the home affairs ministry told Times of Malta that all emergency notifications received are investigated, assessed and acted upon accordingly, regardless of the provenance or legal status of the persons requiring rescue. Just observe how Malta has no information regarding the basis of third-party conclusions made in internal memos, given that it is not a participant in Operation IRINI. In this case, it was never consulted on related matters, and that IRINI itself is not a rescue coordination centre. In this context observe how a spokesperson for NGO Alarm Phone, which provides hotline support for boats in distress carrying migrants, said the Maltese authorities “rarely respond on the phone and, if they do, they do not provide any relevant information”.

Instead, “it seems the focus of the Rescue Coordination centre (RCC) is really to coordinate returns to places like Libya in cooperation with Libyan or Tunisian forces. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for NGO Sea-Watch, which operates spotter aircraft and rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, notes how Malta does not cooperate with them; if they do pick up the phone, they ignore the information we give them. The spokesperson said that most calls from its spotter aircraft went unanswered, it also noted Malta had in the past attended migrant boats in distress only to provide fuel and supplies to enable them to proceed to other rescue zones or territorial waters. The opening of the Libya centre is focused to offer the necessary support relating to combatting illegal immigration in Libya and the Mediterranean region.

A 2021 report by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture concluded that most people returned to Libya, were “locked in accommodation units with little, if any, access to time outside, in severely overcrowded spaces, and essentially forgotten for months on end”. One therefore cannot ignore the hardships suffered by migrants trying to reach Malta on rickety boats. Critics have accused Malta of using its Tripoli centre to help coordinate pushbacks of asylum seekers to Libya. This can be a conclusion from the fact that migrant arrivals have hit record lows in the years since Malta agreed to set up migrant centres in Libya. For example, one notes how in 2024 there were just 238 sea arrivals, according to UNHCR figures - roughly 10% the number that reached Malta in 2020.

But one can also marvel at the form of ethnic cleansing announced by US President Donald Trump when recently declaring America would take over the Gaza strip, relocate Palestinians and turn the area into a “Mediterranean Riviera”. Moving on, let us consider some critical theories about the arrival of TCNs seeking work in Europe. Millions of foreigners entering the Western workforce every year have obviously reduced opportunities and wages for natives, or so the argument went, particularly low earners who were forced to compete with overqualified, highly motivated and exploitable newcomers. But then quoting NSO, one can disagree with this theory. Unemployment in Malta is simply too low to claim that migrants were causing joblessness.

Nativists in Europe, on the other hand can cite plenty of evidence to support warnings that low-earning migrants are a drain on welfare states. But without migration, most probably Member states would have to raise pay to attract, say, care workers, and probably for all health and construction workers. In fact, studies have shown that importing workers who are different from natives adds to the diversity of skills in the labour force, allowing all workers to specialise more and hence to be more productive. Often new TCNs are willing to accept worse working or living conditions than natives. For instance, official statistics suggest that the rate of overcrowding among non-British-born residents is almost double that of those born in the country.

Let us now proceed to discuss the advantages of an EU institution named: PRESERVERE. It is an EU-funded project focusing on the more effective implementation of the EU anti-racism legal framework through the training of legal professionals and frontline workers. The e-book consists of chapters on six EU Member States, namely Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, and the Netherlands. It also includes a chapter on the EU antiracism legal framework, focusing on the Racial Equality Directive and Victims’ Rights Directive, and a chapter providing comparative analysis between the different case studies.

The e-book is a useful supplementary guide to those undertaking the training provided by PRESERVERE and to whoever is interested in the implementation of anti-discrimination law more generally. Many nativists would prefer to remedy an ageing population by incentivising women to have more babies, rather than admitting more TCNs. Yet this is likely to raise demand for housing even more and push up prices. In conclusion, open societies and free markets are a far better guarantee of long-term prosperity, and Malta as one of the countries following the pattern of Europe’s welfare state, should not entirely block the arrival of TCN’s since they contribute to a lot of essential services caused by the demands of a healthy and expanding economy.