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Italian, Maltese and Libyan officials are expected to meet between the last week of August and the first week of September, to discuss the urgent situation concerning illegal immigration.
A statement released by Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato confirmed that the meeting will take place.The talks are expected to focus on the possibility of agreeing on joint sea patrols run by Italy, Malta, Libya, Spain and Cyprus in the Mediterranean.
While ANSA cited the 29th August as a likely date, The Times of Malta reported the Maltese Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg saying that the meeting with his Libyan and Italian counterparts will probably be held in the first week of September.
ANSA said that a statement confirmed that the meeting would take place. The talks are expected to focus on the possibility of agreeing on joint sea patrols run by Italy, Malta, Libya, Spain and Cyprus in the Mediterranean. Speaking to The Times of Malta Minister Tonio Borg made it clear there would be no finger-pointing at the meeting, even if it is common knowledge that practically all clandestine trips originate from Libya.
In turn, ANSA reported that the statement concerning the upcoming meeting was released after Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera published a front-page editorial saying Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was holding Italy to ransom on the issue. The editorial by the paper's deputy editor and Islamic affairs expert Magdi Allam said that Gaddafi was "cynically using the migrants issue as blackmail to influence Italian policies".
According to ANSA the newspaper suggested that Gaddafi has no intention of resolving the immigration problem unless the centre-left government agrees to build a 1,700-km-long east-west motorway across northern Libya as the price for definitively closing the ongoing question of reparations.
Italian Transport Minister Alessandro Bianchi said during a visit to Lampedusa on Monday today that the government would not bargain with Libya on the immigration issue. "Libya's requests? There's absolutely no way we'll barter over desperate people forced to cross the sea on rickety vessels. We'll try to convince Libya that issues as dramatic as these cannot be at the centre of give-and-take negotiations,” stated the Italian Minister.
In the recent days the Mediterranean Sea witnessed a series of tragedies, with numerous illegal immigrants losing their lives in a bid to seek a better life in European countries. An Italian fishing boat rescued 10 immigrants on Sunday after their boat, said to be carrying as many as 40 people, overturned some 70 km south of Lampedusa. On the other hand on Saturday, a boat carrying 120 migrants sank off Lampedusa. Rescue ships saved 70 people, recovering only ten bodies despite a massive air and sea rescue operation.
Other illegal immigrants were lucky enough not to share the fate of those who lost their lives at sea in the recent days. However the arrival of 130 migrants in Lampedusa and the island of Pantelleria between Sunday night and Monday morning and the arrival of 31 illegal immigrants in Malta will not ease present burdens of the phenomenon on host countries.
In turn, last week the European Union launched its first joint border patrol aimed at stopping illegal immigrants coming to the Canary Islands from Africa. Similar patrols are set to take place in Maltese waters in the upcoming days, however the EU has not confirmed a date as of yet because Frontex officials are still going through the final details with their counterparts in Malta, Italy and Greece, reported EUObserver.
Read more about this issue on MaltaMedia's special feature:
Lanċa Ġejja u Oħra Sejra: Malta and its migrations.
See also:
31 illegal immigrants reach Għar Lapsi Bay
By MaltaMedia News
Aug 21, 2006, 09:59 CET
See also:
Final talks for Malta sea patrols underway
By MaltaMedia News
Aug 16, 2006, 09:20 CET
© Copyright 2006 - MaltaMedia Online Network
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