The government is denying there is any agreement with the Italian government linking migration to oil exploration rights.

Following claims, particularly by the Italian media, about a link relation between the two issues, the government yesterday categorically said that “there is no agreement, formal or informal, with the Italian government about migration”.

According to the government, the fact that Italy is taking all irregular migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, even those who, according to international law, are Malta’s responsibility, can only be attributed to “close collaboration”.

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said on Tuesday there was an informal agreement between the two countries about migrants but a few hours later he corrected himself saying there was “close collaboration” not a formal agreement. However, his original statement caused ripples and Italian MEP Barbara Matera yesterday said she would be pushing the Italian government to confirm or deny any “secret deal” with Malta.

The Italian government needs to explain why it has decided to take all irregular migrants from Malta to Italy

“Italian MPs will be raising the issue in Parliament with urgency to seek whether it is true that there is an oil-for-migrants deal with the Maltese government,” a spokesman for Ms Matera told the Times of Malta yesterday.

“If this is not true, and I hope this is clarified, then the Italian government needs to explain in detail why it has suddenly decided to take all irregular migrants from Malta to Italy,” she said.

Despite the fact that the flow of irregular migration from Libya to Europe continued to increase over the past two years, Malta has practically stopped receiving any irregular migrants on its shores. This has fuelled speculation, both in Malta and in Italy, that some sort of unwritten agreement was reached between the two countries. Malta has always denied this.

Asked last April on what Malta was giving back to the Italians for taking all irregular immigrants, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had insisted there was no sort of agreement. The new Italian stance was a form of “collaboration which makes sense”, he had added. In the past, Malta and Italy had crossed swords many times, particularly on where irregular migrants saved on the high seas should be disembarked. While Malta had always maintained these should go to the closest safe port, the Italians used to argue that Malta had to host the migrants saved in its vast search and rescue region.

Such spats between the two countries, which sometimes had to be resolved through the intervention of the European Commission, stopped following talks between the new Italian centre-left government and the Muscat administration.

During a visit to Malta in late 2013, then Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta had said that, apart from migration, Malta and Italy were also discussing the possibility of agreeing on joint offshore oil exploration operations in disputed areas to the south of Sicily.

Although he had said that a final agreement was expected to be reached by the end of 2013, no agreement has been announced since.

Questions sent to the Italian government on the matter were not answered at the time of writing.