Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this morning told MEPs he wished he could take the blame for Malta's EU Presidency not having solved the migration crisis, but the problem was much more complicated than that.
"I wish I could just shoulder all the blame on the migration problem, to shoulder the blame for this fiasco. But the truth is, it is not the Commission's fault, their ideas are very clear. We cannot blame Parliament either - its position has been the same since I was last here 12 years ago. The problem is within [the European] Council and it is a broad one," he said.
The Council is made up the heads of state or government of the 28 EU member states, the European Council President and the President of the European Commission. It is tasked with setting the EU's overall political direction and key decisions are adopted by consensus.
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Speaking during a review of Malta's six-month Council presidency in Strasbourg, Dr Muscat said the migration issue boiled down to values.
Putting forward a modest review of Malta's presidency, Dr Muscat said that it had "inched forward in some progress".
On migration, he said this progress had been in acknowledging that this was both a humanitarian and security problem. These were both sides of the same coin but had previously been looked at separately, he argued.
"This is something that could not be said before," he said.
Dr Muscat said that during missions to Libya, some 5,000 would-be migrants were convinced to return voluntarily - this was double the number in 2016. And while this was just a drop compared to the daily arrivals, the objective was to double this again.
Huge efforts, he said, had also been made in Mali. Dr Muscat said that for the first time the EU was engaging with tribal communities in the southern borders, encouraging them to find alternatives to human trafficking.
"It is a start, but an important one," he said.
Dr Muscat also referred to the presidency's efforts to train coast guards. This was particularly successful, as previously the EU's efforts to train Libyan coast guards had seen them flee and join militia, "to fight against the ideals we were striving towards."
He later told the Times of Malta that MEPs seemed unanimous that Malta had achieved quite a lot through the presidency.
"We closed some major dossiers, but also a lot of smaller niche issues that also make a difference," he said.
Dr Muscat said the presidency was a source of pride for the Maltese.
"While leading the presidency may not have had a direct effect on people's lives in Malta, there is a sense of achievement," he said.
Through its participation, Malta had been part of something larger, part of the "European project".
He also said that the presidency had proven to be of interest to those disengaged from European politics.
"Even the most sceptical of millennials will know that the use of Spotify, women's rights, workers' rights, and future technology were all impacted by this presidency," he said.
Looking back over the past six months, Dr Muscat recounted how starting talks on Brexit - "that disastrous creature" - had been a major milestone.
"We continue negotiating the terms of a painful divorce. And what we are doing here will have a lasting impact," he said.
There was, he said, another dimension to European politics. The EU's role in the world was just as crucial as any other continent and Europe was at the forefront of global matters, be them trade or climate change.