The good news is that Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, is considering an operation based out of Malta to deal with a potential mass exodus of migrants fleeing Libya – envisaging air and maritime surveillance, assisting with capacity at the country’s ports and airports, and developing a more robust repatriation mechanism – should the worst case scenario unfold.

The disquieting news is that, even in the face of what are very serious, albeit still hypothetical, threats, there are some EU member states that, at least as recently as last week, were resisting the prospect of sharing the burden of hosting such displaced people with Malta, should they wind up here.

At the very least, any member state anticipating a situation that it may not be able to handle on its own should expect the support of all its 26 fellow EU countries.

Such is the situation in which Malta finds itself, given the warning signs being made by southern European politicians, who estimate a potential 300,000 people fleeing northward from Libya in ramshackle boats toward safety in Europe. Frontex and Europol have also expressed similar concerns.

Malta’s own home affairs minister made it clear last week to his European counterparts that, should Malta find itself in a situation it was unable to cope with, it would simply open the gates and allow those escaping Libya an open route to the rest of Europe.

That was a bold, and perfectly correct, stance in the face of resistance to share the prospective burden.

When it comes to burden sharing, the European Union as a whole does not have much of a track record to speak of when it comes to the Maltese situation. When the country was being challenged year after year by mass arrivals of sub-Saharan asylum-seeking migrants, most of Malta’s fellow EU member states turned a blind eye to the country’s predicament.

And, despite lobbying and pressure on member states on every diplomatic level, it is still the United States – through its now permanent refugee resettlement programme – that has helped Malta to resettle more of its resident migrants than the whole of the European Union put together.

But, if we thought we had a migratory problem here in Malta back then, this problem fades into nothingness when considering the possibilities on the horizon should Libya descend into civil war, or even if one side of the equation in Malta’s troubled southern neighbour emerges victorious.

Should such a situation come to fruition, Malta absolutely must not be left high and dry, as it has been in the past.

In the current resumption of its role as nurse of the Mediterranean, Malta has not been forced to share any burden – the country saw a crisis situation, it rose formidably to the challenge and it did so in the best possible demonstration of international solidarity.

We expect nothing less of Malta’s fellow EU states, should Malta find itself in dire need of assistance and with a burden to be shared.