Speaking in Madrid on Friday, Arias Fernández, deputy executive director of the EU’s border agency Frontex, labelled Malta’s recent proposals on distributing the burden of irregular migration across the EU27 as “simplistic”.

This week, as Malta continues to bear an increasingly disproportionate brunt of the Africa-Europe migration phenomenon, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg floated Malta’s proposals on burden sharing at the EU’s justice and home affairs council.

Malta’s main proposal was that migrants saved at sea by an EU-flagged vessel in a non-EU country’s search and rescue area be divided proportionately across the EU.

The proposal appears to be directed at Libya’s lack of responsibility for its search and rescue area. An encouraging signal was, however, received yesterday. After initially refusing, Libya accepted a group of migrants picked up by a Spanish vessel on Wednesday in Libyan waters.

Malta’s suggestion, Mr Fernández added, is tantamount to “distributing migrants as if they were packages”.

While Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal are said to have backed Malta’s proposals, other EU ministers dismissed Malta’s proposals as unworkable.

Addressing claims that many lives lost at sea so far this summer could have been saved, if Frontex’s efforts had been more up to speed, Mr Fernández commented: “Frontex is not the panacea.”

He added that Africa would continue to be a main point of origin and transit of illegal immigration towards Europe and this means a wider solution is needed.

This would include addressing poverty through greater development cooperation, more regional cooperation, especially in the Mediterranean, a real European immigration policy and the materialisation of solidarity.

While Frontex patrols are meant to begin at the end of the month, the possibility of truly effective and lasting Frontex patrols is in question. Ninety per cent of member states’ commitments of aircraft and boats with which to equip patrols coordinated by Frontex have, in fact, still to be realised, despite continued appeals.

“Unless there is more participation, there is a very good possibility that the patrols exercise of Frontex will not even start this summer,” Dr Borg warned this week. “But the real issue is not who goes to (the) rescue... the problem is who will accept those migrants.”

The issue of member states making good on their promises of patrol vessels, aeroplanes and helicopters will be a main issue at this week’s European Council, to be attended by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.

Hammering out a solution to sharing Malta’s migration burden, with this year’s numbers so far already tripling those up to June 2006, will also be a central theme.

In Malta this week, European Commission president Jose Barroso pledged to urge EU members to come to Malta’s assistance at the gathering of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday.

“The Commission cannot solve all the problems, not least because we do not have boats and planes,” he said on Friday. “But I recognise that more must be done.

“Some political resistance is yet to be overcome. I have been pushing this issue hard with EU leaders for some time. I wrote to them all before they met to discuss immigration in 2005 and I will continue to push this issue with EU leaders, including at the EU Council meeting next week.”