Who pays the ferryman

Jonathan Miller, foreign affairs correspondent for Channel 4 News, tackles Malta's immigration crisis and writes in his blog that if Malta reduced the size of its 'ridiculously huge SAR zone', it wouldn't have so many immigrants:

We have all fallen in love with our taxi driver, Francis - although his friends call him Francisco. He's 60, with silver hair and a wicked streak. And he's the proud owner of Taxi Number 2. It's a 1974 highly polished, buttermilk Mercedes 200D with black leather seats - and, um, no seatbelts. Francisco's driven it for 29 years. He says it has the original engine and claims he's done a million miles in it. A stunning achievement on an island the size of a sixpence, 24 miles top to tail.

.More remarkable still is that this lump of limestone, smack in the middle of the Med, has a maritime Search and Rescue Zone - they call it the "SAR Zone" in the business - larger than that of any other Mediterranean country. A nation the size of the London borough of Southwark responsible for rescuing vessels in distress in an area the size of the British Isles - a swathe of water stretching from Tunisia to Crete. The dimensions of the challenge become clear when you realise that Malta has but two tiny Cessna spotter planes and a handful of small naval patrol boats at its disposal

With the annual clandestine invasion now in full swing, there are ever more boats to rescue. In recent days the Maltese Navy's been running a shuttle service, ferrying boatloads of African illegals to shore from their overcrowded, sinking dinghies. SAR 24/7. The EU has accused Malta of "violating its obligation to save lives at sea" after some immigrant boats the Maltese were aware of (but didn't assist) dropped off the radar. The Maltese, meanwhile, brand the deaths of African migrants "a European failure" because the EU hasn't delivered the boats and planes it's promised for a rapid response force in the southern Med. It's an unseemly spat given that people are dying at sea.

The argument is not so much about the Search and Rescue bit, but about what happens to the illegals once they've been searched for and rescued. As Malta's so tiny, it doesn¿t want to give a home to everyone rescued in its vast SAR zone. Unlike St Paul, who was shipwrecked in Malta and rewarded with patron sainthood, modern shipwreckees are unwelcome. Hence Malta's refusal to sign an amendment to international maritime law meaning that the nation that rescues becomes responsible for their fate. The Home Affairs Minister, Tonio Borg, told me that the 7,500 illegals who've landed over the past five years is, in per capita terms, the equivalent of 1.4 million arriving in Germany.

Then it dawned. I could single-handedly solve Malta's crisis. Pure inspiration. And so simple. I'd be made a Knight of St John. If Malta reduced the size of its ridiculously huge SAR zone, it wouldn't have so many immigrants. Turns out the SAR zone is a colonial hangover: when the island was under British rule, Whitehall wanted strategic uber-control of the Med and had a couple of Nimrods based out of Malta. A far cry from those two Cessnas. So, why don't the Maltesers just ask the Greeks and the Italians take more of the strain?

Sadly, no knighthood awaits. Malta has no desire to reduce its SAR zone because the maritime area corresponds exactly to the commercial airspace over which Malta's accountants preside. The over-flight fees rake in £5 million a year. For a small place, that's a fair whack of (almost) free money. Even after factoring in the cost of scooping thousands of half-dead Africans out of the water and keeping them banged up behind wire for 18 months, Malta's still healthily in the black, I'm informed. Obviously, the fewer who make it to the island, the more profitable it all becomes. I do hate to be cynical but, like me in Francisco's magnificent car, Malta, it appears, is just along for the ride

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