The European Commission has only managed to convince six EU member states to resettle refugees and other protected immigrants currently stuck in Malta.
Speaking during a meeting of EU interior ministers yesterday in Brussels, Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot announced that only six countries have so far said they would participate in the first intra-EU resettlement pilot project.
Commission sources said those states that have made the pledge are France, Slovenia, Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Lithuania. Some member states said they would decide later while others objected outright.
Clearly unhappy with the lukewarm response, Commissioner Barrot told a press conference that other countries were being urged to come forward to help Malta.
"I hope that we can go beyond the six member states that have responded favourably to our pilot project so far. I appeal to other member states to come forward as this pilot scheme is a test of our solidarity," he said.
Following an invitation to participate in the project last July, member states had until the middle of this month to declare their intention on whether they were interested and if so to state how many immigrants they would take.
However, it has now become clear that there is still a long way to go for Malta to reach its target of resettling the majority of the 2,000 protected migrants currently on the island.
Although the pledges made so far have not been quantified, EU sources told The Times that the numbers are "very low". France is known to have made the biggest pledge so far - 100 refugees.
The same sources said yesterday's announcement also revealed that the large member states which usually push such initiatives have so far shied away from offering assistance to Malta.
"Apart from France, the biggest member state which usually leads such pledges, only a few small member states have so far come to Malta's aid.
"Sweden, the current presidency-in-office and which traditionally supports such Commission initiatives, is not among the committed countries while the big shots such as Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and Poland have all declined or not committed themselves."
Despite the poor response, Malta's Interior Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said it was "a positive step forward".
"Although we expect more countries to participate in this pilot project, the number of countries that have so far responded positively is already a step in the right direction. One has to remember from where this all started as until just a year ago the concept of burden sharing was not even a feature on the EU's agenda," he told The Times. He said the Commission would now intensify its bilateral contacts with member states to convince them that they also need to participate in this programme and to pledge their support to Malta.
Through this pilot project, member states will be given €4,000 for every refugee or protected person they take from Malta and resettle in their own country. The project is aimed at testing the waters on establishing a regular intra-EU resettlement programme for refugees.