Italy and Malta are to receive more help from the rest of the European Union to deal with illegal immigration, according to European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot.
Barrot met with Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and his Maltese counterpart Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici on Thursday following a dispute between the two countries over whose responsibility it was to receive 140 migrants left stranded on a Turkish freighter last week.
Barrot said the EC was ready to offer financial help to the two countries, which bear the brunt of immigrants leaving the North African coast for Europe, and would also propose measures that would mean other member states would share the burden of illegal immigration.
He said that sooner or later other EU countries would ahve to cope with immigrants who arrive on the Italian and Maltese coasts arriving on their territory.
''For that reason we will propose to the interior ministers of the 27 member states a principle of obligatory solidarity, although we don't know if it will be accepted''.
Maroni meanwhile called on the EU to reinforce the role of its border agency Frontex, suggesting that it should be made responsible for the creation and management of ''EU repatriation centres''.
If Europe shared the burden of arrivals in this way, ''the problem would resolve itself'' and cases like that of the 140 stranded migrants ''would never happen'', he said.
Italy presented a dossier to the EC that Maroni said ''clearly'' showed it had been Malta's responsibility to receive the migrants, since they were rescued in Maltese waters by the freighter, the Pinar.
Malta admitted the Pinar was in Maltese waters but said international law dictated the freighter should head for the nearest port, which was allegedly the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.
After a four-day stand-off Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi gave the go-ahead on humanitarian grounds to pick up the ailing migrants, some of whom said they had only drunk sea water for the last two days of their ordeal.
The corpse of a pregnant woman had been lying in the boat since the rescue.
Following the meeting with Mifsud Bonnici and Barrot, Maroni said the ''case was closed''.
''We have not found a solution because there are various interpretations,'' he said.
According to the Italian interior ministry, around 37,000 people landed on Italian coasts in 2008 - a 75% increase on 2007.
Mifsud Bonnici has said 3,800 immigrants landed in Malta last year, adding that ''3,800 on a tiny island like Malta is the equivalent of 400,000 arriving in Italy''.
Italy says it has carried out 670 rescues in Maltese waters since the start of 2007.
