Tonio Borg ignores the elephant in the room
Tonio Borg is ignoring me.
This morning, Tonio Borg met Franco Frattini in Rome, which is presumably why he wasn’t in Malta last night to meet the Libyan secretary for European Affairs, a man in a curly wig who looks like a bit-part extra playing a bandido in a 1970s Sergio Leone film starring Clint Eastwood.
After the meeting, Dr Borg’s office released a statement to the press.
They discussed “immigration and the situation in Libya” – in that order of importance. We were told nothing of what was said about Libya, so it has been left to our imagination.
We were, however, told rather a lot about immigration: that Dr Borg informed Mr Frattini about Malta’s request to the European Commission for emergency solidarity, because 816 immigrants in 24 hours have created a crisis for us.
I wonder how that went down with Mr Frattini, who only last week had to contend with 19,000 men arriving in Lampedusa from Tunisia in the space of a few days, and whose prime minister is now in Tunisia trying to sort out the problem without whining.
The two foreign ministers then talked about the 5+5 summit which will gather together the heads of government of 10 Mediterranean countries, five in Europe and five in Africa. I see that it is still 5 + 5 and not yet 5 + 4, even though one of the five is Muammar Gaddafi, a fact not mentioned in Dr Borg’s media statement even though there is no way on earth it wasn’t discussed with Franco Frattini.
Perhaps that is why the preparatory meeting for the summit, to be held in Naples, has been postponed by some weeks.
Dr Borg then “briefed” Mr Frattini about last night’s flying visit to the Auberge de Castille by Gaddafi’s envoy. He reported to him what Malta had said to the envoy: “There can be no solution to Libya as long as it continues to be administered by the current administration.”
It’s enough to make me want to perform some avoidance therapy on Dr Borg – you know, leap up and down in front of him shouting ‘GADDAFI GADDAFI GADDAFI GADDAFI’ while he screws his eyes shut, places his hands over his ears and shouts ‘Yah yah yah na na na can’t hear you.’
Pathetic.
And then there was the elephant in the room: the one clearly marked ‘ITALY HAS RECOGNISED THE BENGHAZI NATIONAL COUNCIL’. I assume they talked about this. They couldn’t not have. It is far more important than anything else. But Tonio Borg chose not to mention it to the press. ‘U le, dik halliha barra. Ghalfejn noholqu hafna domandi mil-prAss?’
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‘whose prime minister is now in Tunisia trying to sort out the problem without whining.’
Daphne, you are wrong on this one. The Italian authorities have been whining for weeks without actually doing anything leaving immigrants stranded in Lampedusa without any form of shelter.
The Lampedusa crisis was created by themselves, just so that Berlusconi could go down there and theatrically solve the crisis in a jiffy. Incidentally, on the same day and while the Italian media was focused on Berlusconi’s visit to Lampedusa, the parliament was voting on a controversial law on justice refrom that shall solve all of Berlusconi’s troubles with the law.
Seif Al Islam Gaddafi talks to the BBC’s John Simpson last night about ‘old and sick men’:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12968042
Seif Gaddafi called Moussa Koussa ‘an old man’ and therefore insinuated as not being a valid person. John Simpson should have told him that his dictator father is 7 years older than Moussa Koussa. What an arrogant, sarcastic and spoilt person Seif is.
[Daphne – And he said it to 67-year-old John Simpson, who is still valiantly reporting from war zones. It’s not so much that he’s arrogant, sarcastic and spoiled (though that, too) as boorish, uncouth and not at all bright.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/africa/04rebels.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Tell Tonio Borg not to worry too much about immigration and people fleeing from Libya to Malta. If the problem is big enough, he might find himself entertaining Angelina Jolie.
http://www.talkafrique.com/issues/women/angelina-jolie-calls-for-continued-support-to-populations-fleeing-libya-and-humanitarian-access-to
You know something: the minister is right even though it seems you have some thorn against him personally. Yes if for you 800 illegal immigrants mean nothing, for us in Malta and living in Malta on Maltese soil, these 800 + are equal to 190,000 illegal immigrants which landed in Lampedusa.
[Daphne – I do not have anything against the minister ‘personally’. I barely know him. I object most profoundly to his attitude and to his behaviour on key issues like this one, divorce, and some years back, the Gift of Life Movement and its dastardly campaign. I think he is a poor representative for Malta and a very bad speaker and communicator. And no, he is not right. When you negotiate, you have to consider the opposite party’s position and work with it. On Bondiplus last Monday, Simon Busuttil was the only one to point this out. You have to see where the others are coming from. Why should they share Malta’s burden when they are not sharing the United Kingdom’s? It was not 190,000 immigrants who landed on Lampedusa, but 19,000. Clearly, you are keen to talk about burdens and not being able to cope, but your geographical knowledge is abysmal. It would be impossible for 190,000 overnight arrivals to physically fit on Lampedusa. Malta’s 800 arrivals are certainly not equal to 190,000 on Lampedusa or even 19,000. Lampedusa’s population is 6,025 and its land area is 25.48km. Malta’s population is 413,609 and its land area is 316km. To equal Lampedusa’s 19,000 arrivals in terms of ‘burden’, Malta would have to receive 1,302,868 immigrants in two days (3.15 times its population). Going on your speculated 190,000 on Lampedusa, that would make Malta’s equivalent burden 13,045,227 arrivals in two days – and as with Lampedusa and your 190,000, there would be no physical space for them, either. The real argument you should be using is that Lampedusa is part of Italy, but even there, you cannot make the mistake of going on the basis of land area, because immigrants have to be integrated into cities (which have population pressures much worse than Malta’s). They do not settle in country towns, mountain villages or have new towns built for them.]
That’s the equation you should make. From which budget are we going to provide for the livelihood of these 800+ additional illegal immigrants fleeing from Libya with the aid of Libyan government officials who are making quite a lot of money out of their misery and our inconvenience. You have to feed them, house them, provide for their wellbeing and health, which is very difficult for us Maltese to even have a bed at Mater Dei. And yet these illegal immigrants will overshoot the qeueu and will be treated like first class citizens. How about that? And then you shout abuse at those who dare to criticise such obscenity.
[Daphne – The obscenity is yours, including the repetition of the canard that ‘they jump the queue’ at hospitals. ‘They’ don’t. Try ‘jumping the queue’ in hospital and see what happens. You have obviously never been in a hospital queue as I have. You cannot queue-barge, because your name is called out and you go in when you are called. That canard comes from the fact that when ‘illegals’ are taken to for medical treatment, accompanied by a police officer and usually, poor things, in handcuffs, they are rushed through – not so that THEY don’t have to wait, but so that the police officer doesn’t have too. Look, I hate to tell you this, but not being nice is bad enough. You don’t have to add ignorance to your problems – though I often find that the two go together and even define far-right political sentiment: nasty and stupid.]
That’s the funniest part of his comment. He is concerned that we have to pay for these immigrants, but he wants them to sit kindly and wait for hours in a queue, while paying two police officers to do the same.
Logic and reason is on vacation.