Europe will have to pull its weight over immigration in the face of a “human tsunami phenomenon” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said yesterday during a visit to Lampedusa.

“Europe will not be able to shirk (responsibility),” Berlusconi said, a day after more than 500 North Africans arrived on the tiny Mediterranean island despite a recent pact with Tunisia.

“This is not a problem for a single country but for the whole of Europe,” he told reporters.

Italy sparked a diplomatic row this week when it announced it would grant six-month residency permits to more than 20,000 Tunisian migrants in an interpretation of the Schengen treaty that would allow travel to France.

Germany objected that the move was “a blow to the spirit of Schengen”, the EU’s 25-nation visa-free zone, which has gradually eased internal border controls in Europe.

“We have these problems with Germany but we are sorting it out,” Berlusconi told reporters on Lampedusa.

Chancellor Angela Merkel would “have to come to terms with reality and with the fact that Europe is something real or concrete... or it’s not.

“And if not, then it’s better to split up again and each follow their own fears and egoism.”

Earlier, the premier had congratulated himself on his resolution of the immigration problem on Lampedusa, telling local residents he had kept his word over clearing the island of all migrants – if only for around 24 hours.

For yesterday, four boatloads of migrants – around 400 in all and including 244 refugees from Libya – were towed into shore, according to an AFP photographer.

That followed the arrival of 535 North African refugees last Friday night.