It is a fact, the EU attaches strings to every golden carrot it dangles. Malta now has an opportunity to free itself from the shackles, strings and the bullying of other EU member states when it comes to taking in illegal immigrants "rescued" on the high seas. In the past, the many incidents of "staged plight" by illegal immigrants had given even the UNHCR an opportunity to add its voice to the chorus of outrage and the laying of guilt at Malta's door. This happened each time Malta acted in a manner that went contrary to what others demanded of it.

The Prime Minister should stand his ground and refuse to "host" any future Frontex missions whose rules of engagement would require that "rescued" illegal immigrants be landed in the Frontex host country. He has stated that Malta would have no problem participating if member states agreed to operate under different rules. This is pie-in-the-sky thinking! The last thing any of the participating countries would want is to be burdened with "rescued" illegal immigrants! This very nearly implies "burden-sharing", which we now know to be anathema to the rest of the EU.

As proposed originally, Frontex was meant to be a border control agency whose main objective was to protect the EU's southern borders. Specifically, its main target was human trafficking and illegal shipping in the central Mediterranean. In effect, it degenerated into nothing more than a glorified search and rescue operation as it became mired in conflicting rules, guidelines and the agendas of participating member countries. Even its own executive director had declared that Frontex had abjectly failed in its mission.

The Maltese government should be wasting no time in tapping into the gratitude and goodwill it garnered recently from Libya and negotiate an Italian-style agreement of "return" with its southern neighbour. The UNHCR, which is known to object to such agreements, should tackle seriously the processing of genuine asylum seekers from its offices in Libya. It can then assign migrants to the countries that will accept them, according to those countries' abilities to absorb them into their population structures. This should persuade asylum seekers to not resort to paying human traffickers for the privilege of being transported north under obviously less than safe conditions.