The EU’s failure to agree on a common migration policy among its member states has plunged it into an institutional crisis, MEP Alfred Sant has warned.

“Today we first try to deter migrants taking to the sea and try to save them when they are in danger of drowning. Then three, four or five EU member states try to share them between themselves, depending on the size of the group. But this is not being done through EU structures,” Dr Sant said.

“This is a European challenge which entails economic, social and historical factors. How are we going to ensure a common European policy acceptable to all EU member states? We’re still far away from finding a solution,” he added.

Dr Sant, who heads the Labour Party’s MEP delegation, was speaking during an interview on local television.

He noted the contrasting aims of the EU’s Schengen Treaty, which encourages free movement, and of its Dublin II regulation for migrants, which requires migrants to remain in the member state where they first lodged their asylum claim.

Italy was now saying it could not cope and Malta also disagreed with the Dublin Treaty, Dr Sant said, since it could not support “open ended arrivals on migrants on our small island”.

“Italy is providing an identity card to migrants and does not keep an open eye on their movements to other EU states, including Malta so much so that recently 120 migrants coming from Italy were found staying at a disused farm in Qormi,” he noted.

Migration policy tensions on the the Schengen system had also strained politics in Germany, Dr Sant noted, with chancellor Angela Merkel facing a challenge from her Interior Minister to introduce more stringent border controls.