The European Union’s plans to create rapid reaction teams of border guards is music to the ears.

After more than a year of dragging its feet to help deal with the plight that Southern European states have to face on a daily basis, the great cogs of the beast within the EU have finally started to turn.

Europe plans to organise a Europe-wide team to help boost surveillance of the continents’ south coast to prevent irregular immigrants from entering Europe.

About time too. Did it take Europe more than a year to wake up and smell the coffee? While Malta and other countries welcome this decision, it smacks very much of “It’s in the international media. We better do something about it now”. And that is not the much vaunted sense of solidarity that Malta had been led to expect from Europe.

But, on the other hand, one supposes that the country can look on the bright side – Europe has awoken and taken notice. Interestingly, one can point out that many observers were right. If you pander to Europe, you get pushed aside. If you chest beat, you equally get pushed aside. But if you put forward a reasoned and well thought out argument and stick to your guns, people sit up and take notice. And that is precisely what has happened. Strange how Malta and other countries have been left in the dark, and Foreign Minister Michael Frendo hit the nail on the head when he said: “Malta’s people feel abandoned by Europe.” He followed that up with a series of articles and comments in various international news publications and low and behold – a promise of help arrived.

But to be fair, the MEPs who visited Malta saw with their own eyes the problems that this country has in dealing with the now daily influx of immigrants and they immediately toed the Malta line.

Commissioner Franco Frattini pledged help almost from the start and thankfully, he seems to have swayed the European Commission into action.

However, we now need to take a logical look at the situation. The EU is proposing to create pan-European teams to staff the Task Force, yet one can see a danger in this.

First of all, certain states are much more proficient in dealing with boat people in particular, simply because they see it on a daily basis.

These include Spain, Malta, Italy, Greece, France and others. The UK has its own particular expertise in dealing with stowaways, but others haven’t got the slightest bit of experience in dealing with the situation. Perhaps it might be better to draw recruits from certain core nations and have only a rotating staff from other countries. This will ensure that the countries that need it most, namely the Southern states, will learn to coordinate better and to gain more experience.

Another issue where logic needs to be employed is that of joint patrolling. The EU has pledged joint patrols for the western route that connects Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands.

They have received 11,000 immigrants this year and one can only imagine the strain on the islands’ infrastructure and resources. But closing off that route and allowing smugglers to continue to use the Malta-Italy route, will only mean that more and more will come. And where will they end up? It doesn’t take a genius, the stragglers will end up in Malta, the rest will end up on mainland Europe.

The central route also needs to be shut down, and we are positive that another will be set up. But the tide must be stemmed and sooner rather than later and that can only be done by policing the seas in as far a reaching manner as possible.

However, a start is a start. But Malta cannot rest on its laurels. The government must continue to exert pressure in all the right places to ensure that this is not just a token gesture and that the whole of Europe accepts that this is everyone’s problem.