To begin with, Italy’s threats to issue temporary residence permits that would allow Tunisians that have flooded into the country since January to travel throughout the Schengen area is wholly irresponsible.

To threaten to undermine a groundbreaking agreement that allows for passport-free travel for 400 million people from 25 countries over migration concerns quite literally borders on nationalism.

To put matters into perspective, Italy is, quite rightly, concerned about the flood of Tunisian migrants that have inundated the tiny island of Lampedusa since the relatively quick usurping of the country’s former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. These are, for the most part, economic migrants who would in reality have very little claim to asylum.

Since January, the Italian island of Lampedusa has received around 20,000 Tunisian migrants. That is, admittedly, a large amount that would undoubtedly overwhelm a country of the size of Malta. Matters should, however, be put into perspective. Firstly, Lampedusa is not Malta and there is plenty of Italy to which such migrants of any origin could be relocated.

Secondly, in terms of population, it must also be observed that 20,000 migrants to Italy is equivalent in Maltese terms to about 137 migrants landing in Malta. Malta, when it was pleading for European burden sharing at the height of its migratory crisis some years back would had some 2,500 migrants in detention which, adjusted by population, equates to 365,000 in Italian terms. On the basis of these 20,000 Tunisian migrants, Italy has threatened to issue residence permits and allow as many of them that so desire to move on to France. France, in turn, threatened to close its Italian border, the European Union finds itself faced with a Schengen crisis on its hands and there is now serious talk about revisiting the Schengen rulebook.

Yes, Malta could very well have done the same thing years back, after its own Schengen accession in December 2007, as its pleas for assistance from its fellow EU members continually fell on deaf ears. It could have issued temporary travel documents to the thousands of migrants in detention centres. But that is not the spirit of the law, it is not the spirit of the European Union and such a move would not have been in the national interest.

Likewise, Italy’s Schengen antics are not in its own national interest. It is a tantrum and one that will not bode well for the country in the months and years to come. Italy has risked much in the past when it comes to migration, all apparently in its national interest. Its push back policy for migrant boats leaving Libyan shores helped Malta in a way by bringing the numbers of migrant arrivals down, but it was a heavy blow to human rights. Sending asylum seekers back to a place where they have no possibility to apply for international asylum or protection is nothing short of criminal.

Italy’s dealings with Malta in terms of the rescue of migrants at sea have also been dubious. How many times has Italy been seen abdicating its responsibilities in the area, to the detriment of not only Malta but the lives of those at sea? Only recently a boatload of migrants rescued by the Armed Forces of Malta had been turned away from Lampedusa apparently because Lampedusa was no longer a safe haven in terms of the international law of the sea.

But this time the repercussions of Italy’s hysterics will be felt far wider. It will not be felt only by Malta, not only by the migrants that have been hard done by the country in the past, nor only by its fellow southern European states. This time Italy’s migration antics threaten to disrupt the way Europeans themselves travel, and migrate, within the European Union. Now we have a Schengen spat between two countries threatening to undermine the whole of the pact as well as the 23 other countries that participate in the Schengen area.

And although the whole debacle began as an Italian threat against France, where a considerable number of the displaced Tunisians would naturally seek refuge, it has become one that threatens the whole of the Schengen area.

Malta’s Justice Home Affairs Minister’s assessment of Italy’s threat, as rubbish, yesterday was quite accurate. So was his warning that because of Italy’s latest behaviour, border checks may be reintroduced in the Schengen area and the bloc would be brought back decades in terms of freedom of travel and all that goes along with it.

Italy’s push back policy and its apparent reluctance to live up to its responsibilities at sea when it comes to migrants have already set the European Union’s humanitarian standing back by decades.

Let us hope its Schengen shenanigans do not yield the same result.