While Europe is facing another summer of vessels full to the brim with migrants looking for greener and safer pastures, the response so far from the vast majority of the European Union has shown many member states' leaders to be no more than empty vessels bereft of any moral compass when it comes to the new migration crisis the bloc is facing.
And the way things appear to be shaping up, the coming summer could very well be Europe's worst summer of discontent.
While the EU's leaders convene in Brussels over yesterday and today to thrash out some kind of pan-European response to this latest crisis, hopes for any tangible solutions remain bleak. The crisis may be a material one, with the safety of physical human beings at stake, but it also a diplomatic crisis. And that is much harder to fix.
On the diplomatic front, Malta has led the way and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has been the embodiment of diplomacy. Over this latest MV Lifeline standoff, Muscat has demonstrated pure statesmanship - long gone were those initial days of pushback threats, Air Malta planes on the standby and cease and desist orders from Brussels.
And in so doing, Muscat has shown the European Union exactly how this situation needs to be addressed, but only a handful of nations have responded.
Over this latest crisis, Muscat managed to broker what was previously unthinkable: burden sharing, albeit on a small scale, dealing specifically with the arrivals of the Lifeline's migrants who no one was ready to accept on their shores.
Muscat managed to strike what he stresses is an ad hoc, one-off deal to share the onus of taking in the Lifeline's migrants. But, so far, seven member states plus Norway have answered that call: Luxembourg, Italy, France, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
These nine countries deserve commendation for soundness of their moral compass, compassion and good humanitarian sense. As for the remaining 20 EU member states, who, it should be argued, should have felt morally bound to have joined in, the less said, the better at this juncture.
As such, now comes the hardest part: converting that ad hoc agreement struck by Muscat into a permanent burden sharing structure. Muscat has managed to show the European Union some light at the end of the tunnel, but that tunnel is a very long one with a great many diplomatic forks in the road and treacherous potholes to be avoided.
Malta has been navigating that tunnel for years on end with very limited success. Its appeals for burden sharing have been heard by none but the very few.
Now, however, is an ideal time to reinvigorate those calls, perhaps on the back of that one-off Lifeline burden sharing agreement. It is, however, dubious to what extent the participating states would be willing to continue engaging on a grander scale, and the prospect of bringing those who turned down Muscat's call this week is even more dubious. Someone, however, must lead the way and Muscat is in pole position to do so. But in so doing, he needs to show not only our humanitarian compassion, but also our mettle.
Muscat seems to have the support of Europe's most powerful politician, Angela Merkel who yesterday said she would seek a 'coalition of the willing' to agree on measures to tackle the migration spectre until a panEuropean solution could be found.
That solution must at all costs at least include a functioning, Europe-wide asylum system with proper support for frontline states such as Malta, and the creation of shared responsibilities.
Anything short of that and the Lifeline saga is only destined to repeat itself over and over again this summer, and months on end will be spent squabbling about who is to take care of the world's most destitute, downtrodden and needy.
This is a prospect that Europe can ill-afford on so many levels.