Opposition leader Simon Busuttil this morning said the deal struck by the EU on migration was half baked and did not treat Malta fairly.
The Nationalist Party, he said, expected the Maltese government to fight for a better deal.
Speaking during a conference organised by MEP Roberta Metsola, Dr Busuttil said that while the Juncker proposal for burden sharing was a step in the right direction,
Malta should not have been included to share the burden but should have been treated at par with Italy and Greece.
"The PN thinks that Malta should have qualified like Italy and Greece due to the fact that it's an island with very confined space and high population density," he said.
Dr Busuttil said that the PN expected the Prime Minister to fight more for Malta's turf to be included in the mechanism.
He said that, ironically, Malta had now found itself in a position where it had to take migrants from Italy and Greece instead of getting help to relocate migrants stuck on the island.
Dr Busuttil said that it was also very disappointing that EU leaders did not agree on mandatory burden sharing and the Juncker proposal would only be implemented on a voluntary basis.
He said that past experiences showed that voluntary mechanisms were very difficult to work.
The Labour Party, on the other hand, described the agreement as a historic step forward with which the EU was showing real solidarity.
In a statement, it said that in a little more than two years, the number of migrants arriving in Malta dropped drastically and the EU had now agreed with what Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had been pushing for.
The agreement, the PL said, sealed another PL electoral promise, that Malta would work on a European level for the solidarity concept to be implemented in practice.
A clear precedent had now been set for Malta to also be assisted if was in a state of emergency, the PL said.
It added that the Prime Minister was showing he was strong with politicians at a European level while the country continued to do its duty and save people from drowning.
In another statement replying to Dr Busuttil's comments, the PL said that the Nationalist government had faced a crisis in migrant arrivals but failed to obtain anything concrete from the EU.
The Labour government worked to reduce the number of arrivals and managed to get the EU to accept to help Malta if it faced an emergency.