The imbroglio involving Malta, Italy, the Vatican, the UNHCR and the Eritrean illegal immigrants allegedly lost at sea in their scores has many facets to it. It involves tragedy, humanitarian rescues and both high and low politics.
Taking low politics first. Franco Frattini, Italy's Minister for Foreign Affairs and the former EU Justice Minister, has a record of ineffectualness in tackling Malta's illegal immigration problems. As EU Justice Minister, he was notable for promising much and delivering little and now he accuses the EU of doing nothing to assist its southern member states to address the immigration problem. It took the arrival of a Frenchman as EU Justice Minister, Jacques Barrot, for Malta's unique difficulties on illegal immigration belatedly to be recognised.
Mr Frattini's latest sally in this area, with his repeated calls to cut the size of Malta's Search and Rescue (SAR) region since, in his words, "Malta does not have the necessary resources to patrol its area of responsibility", should therefore be taken with a large pinch of salt. It is also misplaced pandering to his domestic audience, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's extreme anti-immigration policies have largely struck a chauvinist chord, as well as alienating the UNHCR and the Holy See.
But Malta has rightly made it plain to Italy, first, that its SAR region is "not for sale" and, secondly, that it is perfectly capable of fulfilling its role under international law of coordinating rescue and assistance operations, an operational task it has performed effectively for the last 30 years.
The (possible) tragedy that prompted these latest exchanges between Italy and Malta is of a different order, dealing with the alleged loss of over 70 Eritreans at sea. According to Italian reports, based on the migrants' stories, a patrol boat of the Armed Forces of Malta gave their dinghy fuel and, despite the condition of those on board who had allegedly been at sea for over 20 days, left them alone to find their way to Lampedusa.
The AFM flatly denies this. It insists that the dinghy showed no signs of having carried 80 migrants at any time. The migrants refused to be rescued, were healthy and clean-shaven and wanted to proceed to Italy. The AFM never abandoned them but escorted them all the way to the territorial waters of Lampedusa. Something similar occurred again on Tuesday morning.
It is difficult to reconcile such two opposing accounts, especially if the Eritreans found at sea by the AFM were indeed the last survivors of a boat of 80, who would surely have opted to be rescued for fear of dying, rather than proceeding to Lampedusa. The jury is still out on this and Malta has said it would cooperate with any Italian or international inquiry that might be conducted into the incident.
As to the high politics, this incident - as several before it - underlines the need for the European Union to recognise that what happens with illegal immigration in the Mediterranean affects directly what happens throughout Europe. To ignore it is simply to store up further trouble. The deployment of Frontex of itself is not enough. Unless the EU - and the new EU Commission, when it returns from its summer holiday, hopefully having overcome the trepidations of the Lisbon Treaty - is prepared to reach an agreement with Libya over the future control of illegal immigrants departing its shores, both Italy and Malta - and, more pertinently, the rest of Europe - will continue to suffer the consequences and tragedies that inevitably follow.