European leaders last week haggled until they were blue in the face over the resettlement of 40,000 refugees inundating the  coastlines of Italy and Greece, but yesterday’s report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has undoubtedly left them red in the face.

The UNHCR yesterday published data showing that 137,000 migrants have arrived by sea so far this year in Italy and Greece, with Malta having been thankfully spared so far this year from the bulk of the crisis with just 94 arrivals of migrants by sea.

As such, all the EU’s haggling over migrant resettlement quotas has resulted in an agreement that deals with less than one-third of those arriving in Italy and Greece alone this year.  And with the full brunt of the summer migration period still ahead of us, estimates are that numbers are very likely to swell considerably before the advent of autumn.  The number of arrivals is already close to double (83 per cent of) last year’s proportions.

Moreover, according to UNHCR figures, almost all of those 137,000 arrivals are people who will undoubtedly be eligible for refugee status.  One-third of those arrivals have been people fleeing continued violence in Syria, whose nationals are almost universally deemed to qualify for refugee or some other form of humanitarian status.  The second and third most common countries of origin this year are Afghanistan and Eritrea, whose nationals also almost always qualify for refugee status.

These are not people who cannot be sent back to their home countries, at least not for a long time to come.  These are people who are fleeing war and persecution in their home countries.  These are people who Europe has both a moral and a legal obligation to provide protection.

But in the meantime Europe haggles while tens of thousands of legitimate refugees’ futures hang in the balance, stuck in limbo in Italy and Greece, while, to the east, Hungary and Bulgaria are also under intense pressure from thousands of migrants entering the EU by land.

Hungary has pledged to build a fence to fend off the torrent of migrants crossing its border with Serbia. France and Italy have been at loggerheads over the movement of migrants along their common border. Police have dismantled migrant camps in northern France, from where people are hoping to cross into Britain.

Foreign Minister George Vella yesterday said he regretted that little progress has been made so far on many of the more substantive proposals tabled by EU leaders back in  April, when they convened in Brussels for an emergency summit in the wake of a particularly deadly migrant shipwreck.

He also repeated that a holistic approach must be adopted and that the results of the European Council last week are welcome, although much more needs to be done on an EU level. He reiterated that this is a challenge that requires a joint commitment by all involved, and he could not be more correct.

While Malta is certainly far from the crisis territory it had found itself in over previous years, it could very well find itself with its back to the wall once again. That is why the sorely lacking European solidarity – between members states and with those seeking protection in Europe – is a crucial and urgent imperative that token gestures such as that to resettle 40,000 of those individuals simply does not cut it.

Not only do tens of thousands of lives and futures hang in the balance, but so do Europeans’ collective humanitarian credentials.  On this front, we are failing miserably. And more, much more, is expected of the bloc’s leaders.