@Paul Bonnici

In recent years, Australia has neither been sending back boats with refugees(push-back), nor giving orders to ships to divert their route to other countries when persons in need of urgent assistance were on board.

Truly, there was one incident in 2001 involving a Norwegian ship – the MV Tampa – where a ship carrying refugees rescued from sea in international waters was not allowed to enter Australian waters. The case was in a way very similar to the Salamis one.
The Tampa affair, as it became known, led to a diplomatic incident between Australia and Norway, with the latter reporting the case to the United Nations.

However, Australia has a system of mandatory detention for unauthorised arrivals of asylum seekers, while respecting international law on refugees. Besides, Australia has an immigration policy which allows annual quotas of immigrants into the country.

You’re not being cynical at all. You’re showing geopolitical acumen that even our top experts lack.

Yes, FDI (that’s foreign direct investment, “investiment barrani”, Joseph) also depends on holding the moral high ground. Next time Italy asks the EU for a bailout, it will find the Europeans that much more accommodating.

Do you think, for instance, that Malta would have been chosen as European Capital of Culture if the selection had taken place this summer?

It’s not an impression; it’s a sad truth.

Europeans don’t vote him in, so what the hack! He is only concerned about himself.

Tahom l-arja u ħaduha.

Muscat jara biss sal-ponta ta’ mnieħru. U dik ħaġa perikoluża fi Prim Ministru.

Floater, one has to choose whether to be part of the EU with all of its benefits and costs, or go it all alone.

We made that choice in 2003. If you cannot understand this simple fact, then no wonder you’re a floater.

If you consider this to be a victory, then I don’t know what you would consider to be a loss. As long as Muscat continues getting this warped feedback that he has won because the majority of the Maltese are racists and this will get him votes, he will continue with his actions.

The fact the a number, albeit relative large number, of people put those comments up, does not mean that the majority of people agree with him. What it does mean is that the majority of people are apathetic.

It is time for the PN to stop thinking that they are still in government and to start thinking like an opposition.

Simon Busuttil keeps talking about ensuring that the controls are in place to check the government in it’s actions.

Supporting the government in this incident was a very bad mistake. Don’t tell me even they did not have the foresight to see what the international repercussions would be? Unless they are slowly sharpening the blade of the proverbial sword.

Yesterday I’ve went through some of the comments in some of the major Italian newspapers, including La Republica, the Messagiero, La Stampa etc. etc. and out of hundreds of comments, only few gave fault to Malta. The chorus was that Malta is already full up, and this from Italians, and that the EU has left Italy and Malta alone. Go and see.

Also, the political class at the helm of the EU is divided on this issue, if not totally recognising Malta’s limitations. And recognition does not simply mean ‘yes you have a problem, but…..’ So probably it is not Muscat who has zero understanding.

But again, what did you expect, that we allow them in, just because Ms. Malstrom squawked from her desk?

[Daphne – Your mentality reflects that of the typical Maltese inability to distinguish between the person and the role, or the system. It is not ‘Mrs Malmstrom who squawked from her desk’. Mrs Malmstrom is an EU Commissioner. She represents the European Commission. It is the European Commission’s instructions with which we must conform, and not ‘Mrs Malmstrom’s’. And why must we do that? Because we are part of that organisation, though we think and behave as though we are sitting outside it.]

Ah, so now we narrow the ‘attendant consequences’ to Europe, not the world.