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“Refugees and immigrants granted humanitarian status will acquire new residence rights after living in an EU country for five years,” courtesy of an amendment to a 2003 EU directive adopted by the EU Justice and Internal affairs Council on April 11, but at least one country in migration front line is opposed to the move: Malta.

The European Council directive comes into force in 2013 and “will give hundreds of refugees and other sub-Saharan Africans in Malta a raft of new rights equal to those granted to non-EU citizens who come to live here legally,” reports the Times of Malta.

The move will also see such migrants afforded the right to reside in other EU states.

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The country has been “stridently opposed” says the Maltese daily. “In 2008, when the proposal first came before Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, Malta had managed to block it single-handedly as the legislation needed unanimity to be approved,” and has failed to push its implementation back to 2018.

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