A couple of days ago my friend Leo Brincat and I issued a press statement to reveal how the Italian government managed to strike an unprecedented deal with the Libyan authorities on immigration. Indeed on New Year’s eve Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato and the Libyan foreign affairs minister exchanged documents in Tripoli to put into motion an agreement that will see Italian patrol boats, manned by a mix of Italian and Libyan personnel, patrolling the Libyan coastline in Libyan territorial waters.

In reporting our press statement another section of the local independent print media hailed the agreement as a “breakthrough” for Malta and ignored, I would say intentionally, the main thrust of our press release which was meant to highlight the overt inability of the Maltese authorities to clinch some form of arrangement with Libya meant to stem the flow of irregular migrants from the Libyan coastline. You will understand that the great majority of irregular migrants landing in Malta use Libya as their point of departure.

The foreign affairs and interior ministries were curiously silent on the Italo-Libyan agreement until the Labour Party broadcast the news. Of course it was good news for Malta as, indirectly, these patrols carry a potential deterrent against would-be migrants and their traffickers. But it was also bad news for the government which, we are told, has been painstakingly chasing the Libyans for similar collaboration over the last few years. I very much doubt the government would have ever informed us about this “breakthrough,” although, now that that the cat is out of the bag, we have been told that Malta is now seeking to collaborate in the Italo-Libyan deal. How politically convenient.

It is no secret that there is broad agreement between the two major political parties on immigration. However in Dr Tonio Borg’s own words this does not necessarily mean that we cannot disagree or debate differences. We both agree that Malta alone cannot curb migrant flows and that without the help of the international community we will carry on experiencing the phenomenon in the years to come. The long term solutions lie in the extent to which the European Union, on the one hand, is prepared to adopt a common European immigration policy based on the principle of responsibility-sharing, and on the degree of Libyan political will to control the problem from its shores on the other.

Also the President of the European Commission, Joe Manuel Durao Barroso, is on record in stating that the Commission has no power to dictate to its member states how to assist migrant-receiving European countries – and the Frontex saga clearly illustrates the problem. The shortcut towards a manageable solution seems to lie more in bilateral collaboration than in a multilateral one.

Fairly, this government has managed to persuade some member states to receive some of our protected refugees – but on a purely bilateral basis – which goes a long way to prove my point. And great merit goes to the United States which, through the good offices of the US Ambassador to Malta, has received a substantial number of migrants from Malta when our predicament is thousands of miles away from the American mainland. These bilateral arrangements have certainly helped to ease the problem albeit to a very small extent.

But the more effective and longer-term bilateral collaboration that Malta (and Italy) require is with Libya. And it looks like the Italians are far more successful than their Maltese counterparts. In September of 2006 the Italian government had already reached some form of collaboration with Libya on fighting illegal trafficking of persons on the Libyan mainland and confirmed that physical exchanges of security, human and technical resources were taking place. Again it was the Labour party that had revealed the agreement while the Maltese government kept ominously silent as it digested the news from the international media.

The news of this new Italo-Libyan deal must have come as a further political embarrassment to the Maltese government. It will, of course, not admit it. And it has already resorted to the usual media spin, hailing the agreement as a “breakthrough,” in order to limit the damage.

But to those who are in the know, it is the ultimate snub.

Dr Gavin Gulia is the opposition spokesman for the interior