Caught as we are, at least the majority of us, between a genuine concern for the plight of the hundreds of illegal immigrants trying to gain a foothold to build a new future in Europe, and the embarrassingly huge economic and logistical problem they have created here, the least we can afford is a government that takes a wimpish attitude with those who should already have provided us with the funds and the expertise to tackle the crisis.

If European Union membership is supposed to mean a better way of obtaining help when help is seriously needed – after all that is one of the many positives marketed with the Maltese electorate when it was still a hot political issue – the deafening silence on the part of even those members with their own share of the problem is a source of major concern. With her limited financial and territorial limitations, Malta cannot be expected to solve the crisis she has unhappily found herself in. At least not alone. The problem of illegal immigration in the Mediterranean requires a tight and proper regional plan of action based on tough but fair diplomatic and political realities.

So far we’ve only had a hint of half-hearted bilateral negotiations that seem to go at full throttle when brakes need to be applied, and brought to an abrupt stop when speed and speed alone is the obvious option. And in between all this hyperbole and the helplessness, there lies our government on its knees. It knows it has to do something but cannot do it. It seeks to at least scratch the surface of the problem that has now become a nightmare, but finds itself powerless in the presence of stone-faced European politicians who have their own problems, thank you.

We have overnight become the wimps of Europe. Yes, we are the smallest and the poorest by anyone’s standards, but it is the attitude of our elected representatives that unnerves even those who had genuinely and steadfastly believed that EU access would be the key to solving all our troubles and tribulations. Here we have the first real crisis since 1 May of last year, and instead of growling and biting into the rich texture of European muscle, the Maltese government remains with its head bowed and its tail limp in a state of utter submission.

I emphasise the role of government because the Maltese, as a politically conscious nation, have never been wimps. On the contrary, examples of Maltese one-upmanship in the annals of imperial and European history, even going back to the times preceding the Knights, are manifold and often recorded in official accounts of the period as well as in individual works such as Jan Morris’ Pax Brittanica trilogy and David Niven’s biographies. The Maltese have always been a politically astute race with a natural tendency for hard, sometimes garrulous bargaining.

While government prances about in the corridors of Europe, the Maltese continue to display this trait. A survey carried out by The Times last week, for example, revealed that a vast majority would back any unilateral action taken by the authorities to tackle the social and economic problem of illegal immigration. There is certainly nothing wimpish in that. In fact it is a re-emergence of the appropriate attitude required in the circumstances, a throwback to the time when Dom Mintoff took on the British and Nato to earn the title of “Deadline Dom” but in the process, he also acquired millions of funds needed to stabilise the national economy.

In contrast, today we have a government that seems to be playing diplomatic Cluedo with neighbours Libya, Tunisia and Italy and at the same time begging for European Union aid. The result of this wimpish diplomacy is a lot of empty talk at a bilateral level and a mere Lm140,000 worth of funds from the EU. Each and every single Maltese citizen can easily tell you what Mintoff would have told the EU what to do with that insulting financial assistance. It is less than what an individual French or German farmer receives annually for milking his cows to the agreed maximum.

It has oft been said that there is something wrong in international relations when a diplomat is called courageous if he speaks the truth. In our case and in our present predicament, our government is simply being taken for a ride. The one and only “tough” talk I have heard so far was on radio the other day when Deputy Prime Minister Tonio Borg insisted “it takes two to tango” in an obvious reference to the question of Libyan involvement in the whole crisis of illegal immigration now affecting the central Mediterranean region.

The rest has been a futile and hapless campaign on the part of our foreign affairs and EU knights in rusted armour. Are the minnows to be ignored or are the minnows acting in a way that they can only be ignored? The latter part of this question seems to be the sad cause of the current state of affairs.

As the wimps of Europe, our government negotiators, do not seem to realise that the art of hard and successful bargaining is part and parcel of the reassurance and self-awareness required at a time of crisis, rather than expecting to be patted and drowned in eyewash, they should be the ones coming up with the ideas and the solutions. Otherwise, we will remain blissfully burdened with this situation of inertia and in complete ignorance of the most basic facts of life concerning international diplomacy.

If a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps; when he says perhaps, he means no; and when he says no, he is no diplomat. Such are the bitter pills that Malta has had to swallows so far in her fruitless negotiations over the issue of illegal immigration. As a result, most Maltese feel they have been left to fend for themselves in complete isolation. It is why they have not exactly been offended or even taken aback by the local racists in sheep’s clothing distributing what were purported to be harmless leaflets on the crisis in the streets of Valletta.

True, the courage to speak must be matched by the wisdom to listen. Be bold in what you stand for, but be careful in what you fall for. But there must be a limit to all this philosophical mind play. Wimpish behaviour has so far got us nowhere. When our own government insists that illegal immigrants are costing us Lm10 million a year but is somehow expected to make do with Lm140,000, we know the buck is going to be swiftly and directly passed on to us unamused taxpayers. Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200, as the old game’s message not so subtly says.