We’ve been writing about the tiny island nation of Malta for over two years. The island is one of the first bits of land that thousands of illegal aliens see as they flood out of Africa across the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to get to Europe. Recently the big shots at the European Union came up with a plan that pays EU countries to help Malta, but only 100 of Malta’s present 2000 economic migrants turned “refugee” have been spoken for.
From the Times of Malta:
The six EU member states who have indicated they intend to help resettle some of Malta’s 2,000 refugees pledged to take a total of 100 people altogether, EU sources revealed yesterday.
Although the Commission has kept the number of pledges under wraps, sources yesterday confirmed that only “token pledges” were made and that “Brussels is finding it difficult to convince member states to share Malta’s burden”.
[….]
During a presentation to EU Justice Ministers last Monday, Commissioner Jacques Barrot said that out of the 26 member states invited to participate in the Malta pilot-project last July, only France, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Luxembourg and Lithuania replied favourably. He urged the other member states to follow their example as this was “a test of their solidarity” with other member states.
The EU under a pilot scheme, is offering EU member states €4,000 for every migrant they resettle.
How much is that in American dollars? I wonder did the US get paid for the hundreds of illegal aliens turned refugee that we brought to the US from Malta?
A few other countries are considering taking a few, but Germany won’t decide until they see how the election turns out! I’m sure taking these immigrants would be an unpopular move in advance of the election.
The sources said some member states like Germany and Sweden have not ruled out their participation. Germany, which usually takes a leading role in such solidarity programmes, is expected to make its position official once next Sunday’s federal elections are over.
I’ve previously been extremely critical of the US State Department’s controversial decision to take Malta’s illegal immigrants because I believe it encourages more human trafficking and more dangerous attempts to reach Malta in overloaded boats. I guess these four nations agree with me!
On the other hand some member states are flatly refusing to take part, including the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria. “These four member states have made it clear that they don’t agree with such a programme as they believe it will serve to attract more illegal migrants towards the EU,” the sources said.
Malta is hoping to be able to resettle the majority of its protected persons through this EU project. This will happen only if every member state pledges to take an average of 80 refugees each from Malta.
And next year twice as many immigrants will arrive and it will require each country to take 160 and so on, and so on.
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