Cecilia Malmström, the new European Commissioner for Home Affairs, whose portfolio includes illegal immigration, has just been to Malta to see for herself what the situation was like. She said that her visit to the island had been planned a week after she was appointed commissioner, some three months ago, and denied that it was in any way related to the position Malta had adopted about withdrawal from anti-immigration patrols by Frontex just a few days before her arrival.

Whether it was a coincidence of timing or not, the decision by Malta was inevitably going to provide the central talking point of her visit. She said, in the kind of diplomatic language that one would expect, that: "We discussed the Commission's position and Malta's position and we respect each other's point of view. There are no hard feelings".

In response, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici remarked that Malta had "retained its position". Reading between the lines, the real situation becomes very clear.

What a more outspoken and forceful commissioner, new to the vexed issue of illegal immigration, and better attuned to the strong feelings that the subject engenders throughout southern Europe, might instead have said was that she would ask her officials to re-examine the issue.

Malta had publicly let Ms Malmström off the hook by claiming, tactfully, that the reason it had decided not to participate in Frontex this year was that "we feel there is no need for this year's EU patrol" since "... the number of illegal immigrants reaching Malta has dropped significantly" as a result of the introduction of joint patrols by Libya and Italy last year.

That may indeed have been the case. But the fact of the matter is that the European Commission's insistence that migrants picked up by Frontex at sea were to be taken in by the country hosting the mission, rather than the nearest safe port, is both contrary to international maritime law - the gold standard in such matters - and also places an unfair burden on the host country. It is also bad politics because it has led to Frontex being neutered operationally. If it cannot operate in the central Mediterranean - one of the key transit routes into Europe - what then is its purpose?

In their anxiety to avert the embarrassing diplomatic stand-off which occurred a year or two ago, when illegal immigrants picked up in Libya's search and rescue region were refused entry to the nearest safe port, Ms Malmström's advisers must have lost sight of Frontex's operational objective: to deter, by their presence, illegal immigrants from entering Europe. Their current actions in refusing to countenance any change to the guidelines is an excellent example of cutting off your nose to spite your own face.

The sooner Ms Malmström causes her officials to re-examine the guidelines, the sooner Frontex can escape the unintended consequences that have arisen as a result of ill-thought out policy devised by bureaucrats with the best of intentions but with no real appreciation of the practical operational implications of their actions.

Although this is a period of relative calm in the central Mediterranean, there is no guarantee that this will last. Thus, a wise commissioner would take steps now to ensure that Frontex is in a position to operate effectively if the situation were to change, as it could well do, rather than face a crisis simply because bad rules of engagement prevented Frontex from operating in a key geographical area.