Migration, Greek chaos and Spanish crisis high on Maltese ministers’ agenda in Brussels

Foreign minister Tonio Borg has told MaltaToday that he will be "coordinating" with Italy's Giulio Terzi to insist on having the EU take note of the warning launched by Libya, raising the alarm about a new wave of migration towards Europe.

Borg and Terzi are expected to hold bilateral meetings in Brussels this morning on the margins of the EU Council meeting, in a bid to present a joint position to Europe, demanding a coordinated effort to address the migration problem which has seen a surge of migrant arrivals in Malta and in Italy over the past few days.

Libya's foreign minister Ashour Bin Khaial told Giulio Terzi in Rome on Friday that his country was witnessing a "dramatic worsening" of the migration phenomenon, adding that the large numbers of sub-Saharan migrants wanting to depart Libya towards Europe are simply "impossible to control".

Eurozone

Meanwhile, finance minister Tonio Fenech will be meeting his eurozone colleagues for what has been described to be a "very political" meeting.

Tonight's meeting in Brussels is set to be dominated by the ongoing problems in Greece, which once again failed to form a coalition government. Talks in the country will continue today, but reportedly without Alexis Tsipras, the leader of far-left party Syriza. He has said he wants to keep Greece in the euro but the bailout must be torn up.

European leaders say that would require them to cut off funding, allow Greece to go bankrupt and eject it from the European single currency.

But while Greece remains the short-term problem, eurozone ministers will also be looking for answers from Spain.

Last week the country was forced to nationalise crippled lender Bankia.

The move caused Spanish bond yields to jump above the 6% danger level. Although they have fallen back below this level since last Wednesday's action, the yields remain dangerously close.

"A prompt and profound reform of the banking sector is a cornerstone of Spain's crisis response and its overall reform strategy," European Commissioner Olli Rehn said ahead of the meeting.

The EU has set Spain a target of a public revenue shortfall equal to no more than 3% of gross domestic product by the end of next year.

However, the EU has already relaxed this year's target to 5.3% - and EU forecasts suggest the country will miss this.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that Spain is mired in recession, with one-in-four of its citizens unemployed.

Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos is expected to set out the Madrid government's preferred economic strategy at today's talks.