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Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of the tiny island which is on the frontline of Europe's immigration crisis, blasted Brussels for its "inadequate" response to the chaos and said the bloc must finally get its act together before it is too late. And he said the days of simply relying on Germany to host the millions of asylum seekers streaming into the bloc is over, insisting not even the EU's most wealthy country can cope with another repeat of the last two years. Mr Muscat made the remarks as he addressed MEPs at a plenary session of the European Parliament on the day that Malta officially assumes the six-month rotating presidency of the Brussels bloc.

EuroParlTV Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat said Europe is facing a fresh migrant crisis

He wistfully reminisced about his own time as a Brussels parliamentarian, which started some eight years ago, when he said there were "many smiles" in the chamber and "very few who would talk about the crisis of immigration". And he said he had "no doubt" that unless the EU takes radical action now, including rolling out migration pacts with north African countries to stem the flow of people crossing the Mediterranean, that eurosceptics will take charge of the bloc within a few years. Mr Muscat also launched into a brutal tirade against eurocrats and other EU leaders, saying that Malta had been warning the bloc for years that its border controls were hopelessly inadequate only to be brushed aside and ignored.

EuroParlTV Mr Muscat said Germany cannot cope with another influx of asylum seekers

AFP Europe has taken in 1.7 million migrants over the last two years

He raged: "Now the issue is much more pressing and time is not on our side. We have been harping on for more than a decade that the migration situation in the Mediterranean is unsustainable. "About the need for responsibility sharing and also the sharing of the burden of managing the flows, which cannot fall exclusively on the shoulders of the frontline member states, and yet we were left almost alone for many years trying to overcome a crisis which was not our making. "The only solution we were given and only at times was some more money but that is not a solution." Mr Muscat said he would have been extremely popular amongst the "silent majority" of voters in Malta if he had chosen to fight against a controversial Brussels-imposed migrant quota system which is being challenged by a number of eastern European countries.

I see no way in which one single member state can manage or absorb this further wave Malta PM Joseph Muscat

But in a swipe at nations like Hungary, which are fiercely fighting the plan, he said: "Solidarity is not an a la carte option which we use when we need it and turn a blind eye to when others need it. "And so the smallest member state, which over the years has suffered first hand the brunt of the human plight of migration with no or little help, signed up to take asylum seekers from other member states which are facing a crisis." He also warned of a fresh migrant surge from Africa which he predicted is set to hit the EU this spring when the weather improves, adding that most of the people attempting to make the sea crossing from north Africa to Italy will likely not be genuine refugees. He told stunned MEPs: "Come next spring Europe will face a new heavy influx of migrants, this time through the central Mediterranean. "Needless to say the composition, origin and reasons why these people want to undergo the riskiest voyage of their life across a deadly sea is different to that of mainly Syrian refugees crossing the Aegean sea."

Migrants Rescued in the Mediterranean Tue, January 3, 2017 Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue all 112 on aboard, including two pregnant women and five children, as it drifts out of control in the central Mediterranean Sea, some 36 nautical miles off the Libyan coast January 2, 2017 Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 12 Migrants try to reach a rescue craft from their overcrowded raft, as lifeguards from the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue all 112 on aboard