Immigration is one of the key political issues facing the European Union. But the problems of immigration mean different things across the Union. For some, such as the United Kingdom, Germany and other northern European countries, there is concern about the number of migrants moving to their countries from poorer, mainly east European states, attracted by better employment prospects, but also generous welfare benefits.

For others, the concern is about the unstoppable influx of asylum-seekers from Africa and the Middle East. Immigration is one of the key elements leading to the rise of insurgent right-wing parties (UKIP in Britain, Marine Le Pen in France, Golden Dawn in Greece, Alternative for Deutschland in Germany, the Dutch Freedom Party, and others). Frontline states in southern Europe – Italy, Malta, Greece, Spain and Cyprus – continue to struggle with the growing wave of asylum-seekers from Africa and the Middle East.

Throughout the European Union, there is a feeling of dissatisfaction and policy drift on this issue. This is no more apparent than in the inadequate response by the European Commission to the operations of Frontex. Italy, at huge cost to its national coffers, is about to stand down its search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean known as Mare Nostrum. The operation – consisting of some 32 ships and costing about €9 million a month – has been responsible for rescuing over 100,000 migrants in the last year.

It is about to be replaced by Operation Triton, a mission which will be run by Frontex – with a budget one-third of that contributed by Italy and entirely dependent on assets still to be contributed by other willing EU nations. Moreover, while Mare Nostrum covered the whole central Mediterranean area, including most of the strait between Libya, Lampedusa and Sicily, Triton’s limited resources will be deployed in a small area some 30 kilometres south of Sicily.

The operational rationale for this is difficult to fathom. Clearly, the limited financial resources have influenced the operational decisions. But one has to question both the deployment area chosen – which will leave Malta and Lampedusa desperately exposed – and, more importantly, its operational value. There is an air of gesture politics about it, which goes to the heart of the European Union’s wholly inadequate response to the overwhelming immigration problems facing it.

The crux of the issue bears repeating. Italy and Malta have borne, and continue to bear, the major burden of immigration through the central Mediterranean. It is about time that other EU countries also carried their share. If the EU cannot stand back, as it rightly states, on humanitarian grounds, then the corollary must be that the EU has to find a way of sharing the consequent burden and devising an overarching policy that deals with all aspects of immigration into Europe.

Since the problem first manifested itself, the EU Council of Ministers has failed to make progress on the issue. EU countries – despite mouthing platitudes to the contrary – do not appear to have the political will to adopt a comprehensive policy on this most vexed of human tragedies.

Until member states stop simply protecting their own narrow national self-interest, the lack of a coherent immigration policy will remain the heart of the problem.

Unless EU leaders are prepared to face up to the need for a comprehensive strategy to cope with immigration, Frontex’s efforts will continue to be seen as inadequate and irrelevant. There is an urgent need for a broader political vision than is currently being displayed to resolve these issues.