EU Must Be Revamped With Equally Shared Burdens, Benefits - Maltese Presidency

The Maltese presidency of the Council of the European Union must work at rejuvenating the EU project, involve member states' citizens more as well as ensuring equality among all states in the bloc, Parliamentary Secretary for EU funds and 2017 Presidency Ian Borg told Sputnik on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Malta assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the Council on January 1 for the first time since joining the bloc in 2004. Its stated priorities include migration, the single market and measures to improve situation in the southern Mediterranean region with a particular emphasis on Tunisia and Libya. Malta is also facing the challenge posed by Brexit, the terror threat and rise of eurosceptic parties all across the bloc.

"We need to redouble efforts to ensure that citizens can understand, believe in and get involved with the EU project; that all of our citizens feel confident that the burdens as well as the benefits of EU membership are fairly and equally shared by all; that the rights of every citizen are protected, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation, that inequality is reduced and that opportunities in our society are equally available to all," Borg said.

At the same time, the European Union needs to be flexible enough to cater for the contrasting needs and wants of the member states, according to the Maltese official.

"We have to make sure that there is a balancing act between flexibility, which should not be so loose as to threaten the existence of a real Union, and intransigent rigidity which can be counter-productive," he stressed.

One of Malta's first initiatives on the way to sharing burdens fairly is to pledge to ensure better implementation of the nearly failed EU relocation scheme.

The mandatory EU scheme aimed at relocating some 160,000 refugees currently held in Greece and Italy throughout the bloc with specific quota for each member state, but only some 8,000 people have been relocated so far, with Slovakia, Poland and Hungary refusing to take in a single refugee.

Malta, backed by Germany, Italy and Sweden, wants to continue pushing for a more fair redistribution of migrants within the bloc with simultaneous efforts to bolster security and democracy in the southern Mediterranean region that serves as the main source of migrants' inflow.

Other proposals by the Maltese presidency in terms of equally sharing EU benefits include measures to put an end to mobile phone roaming charges and secure equal footing for online shopping in each member state. One of the other promises in this regard is reaching an agreement on free Wi-Fi in every corner of the European Union.

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