Five European Union countries have agreed to a temporary system for distributing migrants who arrive via the Mediterranean.

The agreement, at a summit in Malta, was put together by the interior ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Malta and Finland, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and the EU commissioner for migration Dimitris Avramopoulos. 

The arrangement will last until at least October 8 when the proposal will be put to a full EU summit of home affairs ministers, with the aim of widening the arrangement.

Malta's interior minister, Michael Farrugia, said: "There is an agreement of common paper that will be presented to the councils of ministers of home affairs on October 8". 

At the moment, EU rules mean that migrants should be taken in by the first member country they enter, but this has proved a problem for countries which border the Mediterranean, such as Italy, Greece and Malta, where migrant boats tend to land.

It has led to the some migrant rescue boats having to stay at sea - even with vulnerable asylum seekers on board - because countries do not want to be responsible for them when they are rescued and brought ashore.

The summit of ministers from Germany, France, Italy and Malta was held in an attempt to work out an automatic system to share asylum applicants across the EU.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 6,570 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, and 2,260 in Malta. Both nations, typically the nearest arrival point for ships crossing the central Mediterranean, want other EU members to share the load.

Politicians in favor of blocking the ships accuse the rescue groups of colluding with smugglers. But data shows that most sea arrivals through the central Mediterranean do not happen through charity rescues.

The IOM, which collects data at landing points in Italy, estimates that so far this year, half of the people arriving in the country by sea had been rescued by Italian authorities. Another 38.5 percent were people arriving in overcrowded wooden boats, and only 11.3 percent were disembarked after being rescued by NGO ships, according to the IOM.

Italy allowed the Ocean Viking last week to disembark rescued migrants at the island of Lampedusa, but only after Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg agreed to take some people in the group.