Karl Stagno-Navarra
France will be the first European member state that has responded to the new EU burden sharing ‘pilot project’ announced by the European Commission last Friday.
In an unprecedented move, Paris has come forward and is reported to have informed the Maltese government that it will be accepting up to 80 migrants who already enjoy refugee or humanitarian status.
Catholic daily ‘La Croix’ quoted French Ambassador to Valletta Daniel Rondeau as being the architect of such an unprecedented move by Paris together with Immigration Minister Eric Besson.
Sources have reported that the Maltese government has already drawn a list of migrants who have been investigated locally and have been submitted for screening by the French authorities.
“Each case has been thoroughly investigated and screened, to the extent that we have also studied details about their integration into French society,” Ambassador Rondeau told ‘La Croix’.
The paper also carried comments by President Emeritus Guido de Marco who insisted that the situation with migrants in Malta has become “unsustainable.”
While he praised the French government for its decision to assist Malta in concrete terms, he appealed to the rest of the European Union to keep to the values of solidarity and not divert to egoism and shun the Pact on Immigration.
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