It is truly a sad state of affairs when private individuals are compelled to step in and inject a small fortune accumulated from hard work to save human lives, when a bloc of countries with the clout and might such as that wielded by the European Union have failed to respond to one of the greatest ongoing human tragedies in the world taking place right at its doorstep.

The people behind the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) put the EU as a collective bloc to shame, as much as Italy had put the rest of the European Union to shame with its immensely successful Mare Nostrum operation last summer. For their efforts, both the Italian government as well as the Americans behind the MOAS operation, Chris and Regina Catrambone, deserve a Nobel Prize of some sort for their services to humanity and the sanctity of life.

MOAS started its second year of operations yesterday as its privately-funded ship set sail out of Malta on a mission to save more lives, equipped with two helicopter drones, high-speed rescue boats and a professional medical crew from Médecins Sans Frontières. The NGO last year saved some 3,000 migrants who were trying to make the difficult crossing from North Africa to Europe. This year, they believe the numbers could increase.

This year, the operation will be patrolling closer to Libyan waters, an area where the European Union apparently fears to tread, but where the vast majority of migrant tragedies actually take place.

Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil remarked yesterday on how MOAS is teaching people, and politicians, a lesson: “If they can do it, so can others. This is the kind of concrete action that politicians should turn to. The EU, the world, should look at what these volunteers are doing and follow their example. Saving human lives should be the utmost priority – all other considerations are secondary. MOAS is teaching this lesson.”

We could not agree more.

A day earlier, the Prime Minister also paid a visit and remarked how Malta was the only country that had dedicated 100 per cent of its military assets to search and rescue missions. He also stressed that there must be legal means for refugees and asylum seekers to make it to Europe. The Maltese government changed its tune long ago, from one of advocating pushbacks to more humanitarian approaches to the phenomenon.

Again, we could not agree more. 

But, tragically, other Europeans are not of the same mind, as amply evidenced by European Union leader’s shameful approach to recent tragedies in the Mediterranean. Although what can be considered only as trickles of assets from a handful of member states are on their way to the Mediterranean to help with what is expected to be a very busy summer in the central Mediterranean, leaders themselves last week collectively failed to rise to the occasion when they gathered last week for an extraordinary summit prompted by a widely-reported tragedy in which untold hundreds went to their watery graves.

They not only failed the thousands of would-be migrants intending to seek refuge somewhere in Europe from the horrors of their own countries, but they failed their own citizens and the European ideal of humanitarianism.

Instead of first and foremost coming up with ways in which to protect human lives, they instead decided to protect the EU’s borders. Those conclusions by EU leaders, we are certain, were objected to by Malta, as, we are certain, was the EU’s pledge to resettle 5,000 more refugees in Europe.

EU leaders also stressed, once again, on voluntary resettlement among EU member states – a call that has failed and fallen on deaf ears for years on end now.

Not so with the European Parliament, which this week voted for mandatory burden sharing, for which Malta has been calling for years now. They also voted in favour of a permanent humanitarian mission in the Mediterranean.

But these two proposals have placed the European Parliament and the European Council (the member states themselves) on a policy collision course. As such, it will be interesting, and crucially important, to see how the European Commission addresses these issues in its pending release of its migration policy.

This month’s incidents in the Mediterranean, and the more than 1,700 deaths and almost 40,000 crossings we have seen so far in 2015 are symptoms of an enormous and intensifying tragedy that is being played out on Europe’s southern borders. The Mediterranean crossings are not just a migrant phenomenon, they are a refugee phenomenon too – half of those who crossed the Mediterranean in 2014 were people seeking refuge from wars and persecution. There has to be some alternative for such people, who are left with no option other than to cross the Mediterranean in traffickers’ ramshackle, overcrowded boats.

The European Council’s shallow and shameful response to the migrant crisis is predominantly aimed at preventing migrants and refugees from reaching Europe and creating restrictive border control policies in countries of transit and origin. 

By investing in law enforcement and border management to stop human smuggling and without, at the same time, establishing accessible legal channels for refugees and migrants, the EU is only addressing the symptoms and not the human tragedy itself.

Focusing on keeping people out of Europe by cutting their only existing routes is only going to push people fleeing for their lives to find other potentially even more dangerous routes to safety.

It is expected to be a busier summer than usual along the central Mediterranean’s migratory route and it is very much hoped that Europe will collectively take tangible, concerted action to save lives at sea on its doorstep.

And if not, just how many more tragedies will it take until Europe will take heed?