"Europe will not be able to shirk (responsibility)," Berlusconi said, a day after more than 500 North Africans arrived on the tiny Mediterranean island despite a recent pact with Tunisia.

"This is not a problem for a single country but for the whole of Europe," he told reporters.

Italy sparked a diplomatic row this week when it announced it would grant six-month residency permits to more than 20,000 Tunisian migrants -- in an interpretation of the Schengen treaty that would allow travel to France.

Germany objected that the move was "a blow to the spirit of Schengen", the EU's 25-nation visa-free zone, which has gradually eased internal border controls in Europe.

"We have these problems with Germany but we are sorting it out," Berlusconi told reporters on Lampedusa.

Chancellor Angela Merkel would "have to come to terms with reality and with the fact that Europe is something real or concrete... or it's not.

"And if not, then it's better to split up again and each follow their own fears and egoism.

"I think the Chancellor can only agree on (the) politics of European sharing in the face of this human tsunami phenomenon," he added.

Earlier, the premier had congratulated himself on his resolution of the immigration problem on Lampedusa, telling local residents he had kept his word over clearing the island of all migrants -- if only briefly.

For on Saturday, four boatloads of migrants -- around 400 in all and including 244 refugees from Libya -- were towed into shore, according to an AFP photographer.

That followed the arrival of 535 north African refugees on Friday night.

Aid workers helped carry out health checks on the new arrivals while Friday's arrivals, who included infants and elderly people, were transported off the island.

The migrants included Somalians, Nigerians and Eritreans who had travelled for three days jammed in a crowded boat with little drinking water, aid workers said.

But on Wednesday, a boat carrying Africans fleeing Libya capsized in stormy weather in the middle of the Mediterranean, leaving 150 missing and feared drowned.

Africans began fleeing for Lampedusa and other islands in the Pelagian archipelago -- which lies closer to north Africa than to mainland Italy -- when the conflict in Libya began in mid-February.

Authorities had already begun transferring the newly arrived migrants off the island ahead of Berlusconi's visit, a process that in the past has taken weeks to get into gear.

"We have to receive people in a dignified way... remembering that 60 million Italians abroad are children of emigrants and we have a duty to be humane and generous," Berlusconi said Saturday.

Italy would be putting on two flights a day to repatriate Tunisians as part of an agreement made with Tunis this week to help stem the flow of economic migrants to the Mediterranean, he said.

He hoped the "psychological pressure" of seeing fellow nationals repatriated after a harrowing journey across the seas would dissuade others from attempting the journey, he added.

Around 26,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, including some 21,000 who said they were from Tunisia.

They said they were fleeing the dire economic situation that had followed the political uprising in January.

Italy struck a deal with France on Friday to grant Tunisia economic aid and carry out joint patrols off the north African country's coast to intercept Europe-bound migrants.

In the meantime, they issued the first temporary permits to migrants.

But Berlusconi said Saturday: "Common sense tells us we rapidly find an agreement" with Paris, "who must realise that 80 percent (of Tunisian migrants) say they want to join their relatives and friends in France."

"If there is no agreement we will be obliged to put them in reception centres and we can only keep them for six months, and afterwards, they will be free to go to France," he added.

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