Momentum backs the European Democrats’ stand against the EU’s push for deportations centres
On 17 June the European Parliament approved the toughest shift in EU migration policy in decades. The new Return Regulation passed by 418 votes to 218, with 30 abstentions.
It was carried by the centre-right European People’s Party voting alongside the hard and far right: the European Conservatives and Reformists, the Patriots for Europe, Europe of Sovereign Nations and all of Malta’s 6 MEPs. That alliance is fast becoming the new normal in Strasbourg whenever migration is on the agenda. Despite this, Momentum’s European family, the European Democratic Party, voted against it.
The law lets member states set up deportation centres outside the EU, so-called return hubs, in countries migrants have never set foot in. Families with children can be sent there. It stretches detention from six months to two years. It raises entry bans to ten years, and to life for some. And it ends the automatic suspension of a deportation while an appeal is still being heard.
It also lets authorities search the homes of irregular migrants. NGOs and civil society groups have compared these powers to the raids carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An ICE-style approach has no place in Europe.
Momentum does not pretend migration is simple. It is a real and serious challenge, and one that falls hardest on frontline states like Malta. The answer, however, is not to outsource it to countries outside the EU and look the other way. The answer is genuine shared responsibility, with every member state carrying its fair part rather than leaving those at the border to cope alone.
This is the direction Momentum warned against during the election. Our ‘Bidla ta’ Vera’ manifesto set out a clear, humane and rights-based migration framework, with an end to arbitrary detention and procedural safeguards for everyone who arrives. It committed us to oppose any weakening of the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Convention, especially on migration, to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law, and to keep human rights at the centre of every foreign policy decision Malta makes.
Momentum General Secretary Mark Camilleri Gambin said: “Europe is abandoning its foundational values for populist extremes. Detention without limit, families sent to countries they have never seen, and sweeping home raids dressed up as enforcement have no place in a modern democracy. Both the Nationalist MEPs marching in lockstep with the EPP’s rightward shift, and the Labour MEPs abandoning their supposed socialist principles, have failed Malta and Europe. The European Democratic Party was right to refuse, and Momentum is proud to stand with our European family in defending the values Europe is meant to be built on.”
Momentum supports a firm but fair system where those who commit serious offenses are subject to swift repatriation, but we will not accept a blanket policy grounded in fear and arbitrary detention.
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