EU ignores Malta on special status for refugees

Malta asked the European Commission on 30 March 2011 to activate a ‘temporary protection’ mechanism allowing refugees from Libya to be granted fast-track asylum procedures anywhere in the EU. But neither the EC nor other member states are willing to proceed for now.

‘The Maltese government has requested yesterday [30 March] for the activation of the temporary protection mechanism. It is now up to the EU commission to come up with a response,’ Maltese centre-right MEP Simon Bussutil told this website on 30 March 2011, on the fringes of a debate on migration organised in Brussels by the European Policy Centre.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: First Libyan refugees arrive in Lampedusa http://www.europeansources.info/record/first-libyan-refugees-arrive-in-lampedusa/

Malta: Department of Information: Press release, 29.3.11: Foreign minister Tonio Borg attends the Libya conference in London http://www.doi-archived.gov.mt/EN/press_releases/2011/03/pr0617.asp

Mediapart, 9.6.11: In the forgotten camps (via PressEurop) http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/703671-forgotten-camps

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