The vice president of the Italian government and minister of infrastructures, Matteo Salvini, assured today that “the whole” weight of migration in Europe “cannot fall on the shoulders of Italy, Spain, Greece or Malta and Cyprus” after the open confrontation between Paris and Rome for the Italian refusal to allow the disembarkation of a humanitarian ship belonging to the French NGO Sos Mediterranée.
“Since the whole world is filling its mouth with the word European solidarity, let us apply it. At this point the Pope and (the Italian head of state Sergio) Mattarella also said it, may Europe give a sign”, he told the local media Salvini, champion of the tightening of Italian immigration policy by the Executive led by the far right Giorgia Meloni.
The Ocean Viking landed this Friday in Toulon (south-eastern France) with the 237 migrants it had on board, after being rejected by Italy, after which France assured that it “broken trustbetween the two countries and that there would be “consequences” both bilaterally and in the European Union, while Meloni described the reaction of Paris as “aggressive” and “disproportionate” and called for a “European solution”.
“If during this year among the tens of thousands of migrants who arrived in Italy – for now we are almost 90 thousand – the famous European solidarity has placed 117 in other countries, where is it?” said Salvini, promoter of the policy of closed ports in Italy between 2018 and 2019 and for which he is currently being tried by the Italian Justice.
“It can’t all fall on the shoulders of Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta and Cyprus. Europe is all of Europe,” he told Italian media during a visit to the International Cycle and Motorcycle Exhibition in Milan (north).
The Meloni government has tightened Italian policy with NGOswhich it accuses of facilitating the flow from Africa, and has issued a decree that allows only the most vulnerable to land in its territory, while the rest must remain inside and then be returned to international waters.
