The EU’s latest effort to tackle the flow of largely economic migrants to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa is born out of crisis rather than long-term planning. Italy and now increasingly Spain have become the favored arrival points for asylum seekers from North Africa.

On paper, the plan looks reasonable, so reasonable indeed that many might be tempted to ask why no one thought of it before. Niger and Chad are the countries in which the people-smugglers assemble their human cargos for the perilous road trip through Libya’s Sahara desert. From there Libyan gangs launch them across the Mediterranean in flimsy craft, very often only after they have imprisoned and exploited their passengers.

On Monday, French, German, Italian and Spanish leaders agreed to fund UN and other migration agency offices in Niger, Chad and Libya where refugees can apply formally for asylum in the EU. To underwrite this scheme, the EU will pour money into Chad and Niger and increase the funding it is already giving Libya to run detention centers where many thousands of would-be migrants are being held in appalling conditions.

The EU leaders said that their new plan would allow the “most vulnerable” asylum seekers to gain access to Europe without the horrors of the people-smuggling routes.

The problem is this scheme is specious nonsense and what is more the EU politicians must be perfectly aware of this. The plain truth is that the vast majority of those seeking to go to Europe from Africa are economic migrants. They are not fleeing for their lives. They are merely trying to get out of countries where their economic prospects are dim to a Europe where, even if they are exploited at the very bottom of the wage scale, they will still be earning substantially more than they ever could back home.

A tiny minority is actually in danger in their own countries in Africa. To these must be added the Syrians who have been driven from homes by the barbarous civil war unleashed by Bashar Assad. The rest are exploiting the European migration system characterized by typical EU dithering and indecisiveness.

There is no way that these offshore asylum application centers are going to work. However, what does seem to be having an impact is an Italian-led initiative to pay the Libyans to stop the people smugglers. No figures have yet been given but the head of the European parliament Antonio Tajani has said that Brussels should be prepared to pay Libya €6 billion to stop the flow of migrants. That sum is twice as much as the EU agreed last year to give Turkey to stop people-smuggling into Greece.

To the fury of many Libyans, the Italians — who have received the bulk of the 120,000 migrants so far this year — appear to be paying the people smugglers themselves and the Libyan coastguard, some of whom it is alleged are in cahoots with the human-traffickers, to stop migrants. In the last two months the number of arrivals in Italy has actually halved. Handing wads of cash to the criminal militias that run this odious trade along with massive fuel smuggling, is going to do nothing for Libya’s collapsing security and stability since it merely enriches and empowers the very people who are dragging the country to disaster.