No sign that government will lift ban on NGOs entry and exit to Maltese ports - sources

There appears to be no signal of the government lifting its ban on the entry and exit of NGOs vessels in Maltese ports until the conclusion of the case involving MV Lifeline, sources have indicated to The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Other sources who are close to the NGOs said that the legality of Malta’s decision is being explored.

“Clearly, however, this ban is more of a political move than a decision taken on the basis of sound legal considerations,” sources said.

The decision to block Maltese ports came after both Italy and Malta refused to allow MV Lifeline, an NGO-owned vessel, to dock and take responsibility for the migrants on board after the vessel ignored orders to return the migrants to Libya.

While the stalemate was broken on 25 June after eight EU countries including Malta entered into an ad hoc agreement, promising to take a share of the migrants on board, Lifeline Captain ClausPeter Reisch was charged with entering Maltese territorial waters illegally without proper registration or a licence.

The prosecuting officers also requested that the court orders the confiscation of the vessel.

In a statement on 28 June, the Maltese government said that the country needed to “ascertain that operations being conducted by entities using its port services and operating within the area of Maltese responsibility are in accordance with national and international rules.”

“Given that there are investigations being carried out by independent authorities [MV Lifeline case], and until these issues are clarified, Malta cannot allow entities, whose structure might be similar to that being subject to investigations, to make use of Malta as their port of operations, and to enter or leave the said port,” the statement read.

“The investigation is a long process,” sources explained when speaking about the current status of the NGOs and whether there is any possibility of the ban being lifted.

Diplomatic issues concerning migration emerged after the rise of an anti-migrant populist coalition in Italy, which is composed of two parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum and have shown open hostility to the current status quo and international obligations.

Malta has been steadfast in standing its ground on the issue, with Prime Minister Muscat employing aggressive tactics in the face of growing tensions, blocking NGOs from entering or exiting Maltese ports, grounding an NGO’s spotter plane and only accepting the entry of a vessel on the establishment of an adhoc agreement ensuring the relocation of the migrants between eight European states.

Muscat has got backing from EU Council President Donald Tusk for his action, and it should be noted that while ethical and moral questions may persist, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows Malta to express its sovereignty over the decision to close the ports to NGO vessels.

‘Maltese authorities stalling for time’ - SeaWatch

Speaking in a ‘Meet the NGOs’ event organised by Moviment Graffitti on Friday, Tamino Bohm from the NGO Sea-Watch said that he was in ‘intense discussion’ with the Malta Civil Aviation Authority to ascertain why their aircraft, Moonbird, was not allowed to leave from Malta and that while a lot of arguments had been present by the authority, none of them were applicable to their case.

For instance, he said, they were sent a notification that Italian registered aircraft are not allowed to fly into the Libyan flight information region. However, Moonbird is in actual fact registered in Switzerland, and not Italy, so such a notification does not apply to them.

Another example Bohm mentioned was that the authorities had told the NGO that search and rescue in the Maltese search and rescue zone is exclusively a state operation and that as a result they were not allowed to conduct such missions. However, Bohm said, Moonbird does not operate search and rescue missions in the said Maltese zone.

Furthermore, when told by the MCAA that they were flying over Maltese search and rescue zones anyway, Bohm argued that this was obvious as they were based in Malta and that if they did encounter a vessel in distress in Maltese waters then they would report it to the relevant authorities like any other private company is obliged to do.

Bohm said that he thought the fact that the aircraft was grounded was due to ‘political reasons and not out of legal reasons’, as the authorities have failed to provide to them the passage of the law that they are supposedly breaking.

He also confirmed that SeaWatch would consider taking the matter to court, given that they are being held in Malta without any basis.

Another member of SeaWatch, Kim Heather-Jones, also spoke to The Malta Independent about the situation surrounding the NGOs ship, which remains locked into port and has been so for the past five weeks.

He said that Maltese authorities are currently questioning why they are not registered as a non-commercial search and rescue vessel. The problem with this question, Heather-Jones said, is that there is no such registration in existence for a noncommercial search and rescue vessel.

He said that there is some form of communication ongoing between Maltese and Dutch authorities; the latter of whom Heather-Jones said will confirm that no such registration exists.

Back when the ship was first not allowed to leave Maltese ports, a team of Dutch investigators boarded the ship to investigate its facilities and registration paperwork. Asked about the outcome of these investigations, Heather-Jones said that the investigators had found nothing wrong at all with their papers and in fact even commented that the ship was run very professionally, that everything was in order and that the crew was more than adequately trained and certificated for the registration of the vessel.

Heather-Jones said that the ship is registered and it fulfils the requirements of that registration. If the Maltese authorities believe that they do not fulfil the requirements, or that they fundamentally disagree with the requirements themselves then they have to be clear with Sea-Watch on what the vessel’s failings are and how to address them, Heather-Jones said. This is something that the Maltese authorities have not done, he added.

“At the moment, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is political pressure being put on Malta by the Italian government and they are just simply stalling for time, which is something that the people at sea simply do not have,” Heather-Jones concluded.