The meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the turmoil in Libya ended with the mouthing of well-worn platitudes: pledges of “concrete” support to southern member states that might be affected by an invasion of Libyan and other African asylum seekers.

Asked for his views, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, putting a brave face on matters, said he was very satisfied with the promises made by states that they would help. “We were assured that a solidarity emergency fund will be at our disposal in case what we fear eventually happens”. Rather optimistically, he added that European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom “is on top of her brief”.

But is she?

The fundamental issue of burden-sharing, which lies at the heart of any credible contingency plan to deal with a crisis involving a sudden, overwhelming mass influx of refugees through the central Mediterranean, was ducked. Sweden, which probably speaks also for other north European countries, resisted burden-sharing outright and had the temerity to suggest that Italy and Malta might be exaggerating the situation.

Past experience of the EU in any crisis – most particularly instances of mass immigration into southern Europe – demonstrates it is invariably sclerotic, tardy, inchoate and disjointed in its response. We may be witnessing something similar in the case of the unfolding Libyan crisis. But delay and inactivity could be very expensive politically and economically and serve only to underline the EU’s inadequacy in coping effectively, on behalf of all its citizens, with such challenges.

The crux of good contingency planning lies in preparing for the worst, even while hoping that the worst does not happen. This is what the European Commission should now be doing. If justice ministers are themselves unable to agree on the basic outlines of such a plan, then European leaders should be invited by the President of the Union to confront it.

The outlines of an international, Europe-wide contingency plan should establish the basic ingredients. At its heart must be the issue of tangible, concrete and compulsory burden-sharing mechanisms going beyond funding. Important though funding is, that is the relatively easy bit.

The real test lies in how countries likely to be hit hardest can share with other states in Europe the human burden of coping with so many thousands of refugees, arriving in rapid successive waves. This requires a root and branch revision, or suspension, of the Dublin II regulation – which Malta and others have been pressing in vain for some time – to remove the inequity of placing the burden permanently on the shoulders of the countries of first arrival. For Malta, with its small size and dense population, this is a pivotal issue.

Secondly, there must be fresh thinking on how to control the influx of refugee boat people once the exodus begins. Frontex and European naval forces should examine the most effective way of doing this. There has been talk of imposing an air exclusion zone over Libya. The possibility of some form of limited and temporary maritime exclusion zone in the central Mediterranean should also be examined.

Immigration into Europe on the scale contemplated by the tumultuous events in Libya has not been experienced in Europe for 70 years. European politicians must be prepared to confront the worst-case scenario with imagination, determination and a political vision that has hitherto been lacking. At the moment, the signs of this happening are not encouraging.