Italy took a formal step to protest
the migrant emergency with Brussels Wednesday and said that
foreign ships may be stopped from docking in Italian ports
unless the situation improves.
With over 12,000 migrants landing in the last 48 hours, Rome
said the situation, with its impact on social and political
life, was "unsustainable" and "at the limit".
Italy is taking a formal step with the European Commission in
relation to the large numbers of asylum seekers landing on its
shores, ANSA sources said.
Over 10,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy from Saturday to
Tuesday and some 12,000 have arrived in the last 48 hours.
The government gave its ambassador to the EU, Maurizio
Massari, a mandate to formally raise the issue with European
Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos,
the sources said.
Massari went on to tell Avramopoulos that the situation
regarding asylum seekers landing in Italy was at the limit,
diplomatic sources said.
Massari said the situation was having an impact on the
country's social and political life and, as a result, it would
be difficult to allow new arrivals, the sources said.
Avramopoulos, who said the EC was ready to "substantially"
boost resources to Italy, went on to tell ANSA that "Italy is
right in saying that the (migrant) situation on the central
Mediterranean route is unsustainable".
He said he had met with Italy's EU envoy to "see how to
improve the support to the country".
Avramopoulos said "we have the obligation to save lives" but
"we cannot leave a handful of countries to face this."
He said the situation would be discussed at an informal EU
interior ministers' meeting next week in Tallin.
Avramopoulos also said States should now bolster their work
on the migrant front with Libya and should show more solidarity
with Italy.
European Commission spokesperson Natasha Beraud told ANSA
"beyond the EU operations, which are not in question, the
question of the (migrant) landings is regulated by international
law."
She said the EC "however, deems opportune that any change in
policies must first be discussed and communicated in the proper
way, so as to give the NGOs the chance to prepare".
She said Brussels "will help to inform the discussion and is
ready to give indications for the landings".
Rome's message to the Commission, sources said, is that Italy
is facing a serious situation and Europe cannot look the other
way.
It is unsustainable, Italian diplomatic sources said, that
all rescue ships should land in Italy.
If the situation does not change, they said, Italy may be
forced to deny permission to dock to non-Italian-flagged ships
or ones that are not part of European missions.
The Italian government is in fact mulling whether to deny
docking privileges in Italian ports to ships rescuing migrants
off Libya that are flying non-Italian flags, government sources
said.
They reiterated it was now "unsustainable" that all the
vessels operating in the Mediterranean should bring rescued
asylum seekers to Italy.
Italy, the sources said, will continue to save human lives at
sea as it has always done over recent years, but it is no longer
sustainable that the whole burden of migrant reception should
fall on Italy.
Rescues and reception cannot be separated and therefore the
contribution of the EU must not be limited to sea rescues, the
sources said.
A possible block on Italian ports would concern ships
operated by non-governmental organisations operating in the
central Mediterranean, sources indicated.
But it would not for the moment affect naval units inserted
in the mission of Frontex, the EU border control agency, and in
EUNAVFOR MED, the operation that is tasked with combatting human
traffickers in the Sicilian Channel and in which 25 European
nations are taking part, the sources said.
Ex-premier and ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD)
leader Matteo Renzi backs the new hard line on migrants and the
EU taken by Premier Paolo Gentiloni and Interior Minister Marco
Minniti, PD sources said.
The sources welcomed the formal diplomatic step on migrants
taken by the government with the European Commission, noting
that Renzi on Tuesday himself called the situation
"unsustainable".
They also pointed out that the PD leader's positions on Italy
getting more help in coping with the migrant emergency were
"well-known".
In Ottawa, President Sergio Mattarella said "if the
phenomenon of (migrant) flows continued with these numbers the
situation would become unmanageable even for a great and open
country likes ours".
Speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
Mattarella said it was "an epochal phenomenon that cannot be
cancelled by putting up walls but must be governed with
seriousness".
Mattarella added that migratory phenomena "must be governed
while at the same time ensuring the security of citizens".
European countries must "stop turning the other way" on the
migrant emergency "because that is no longer sustainable,"
Premier Gentiloni said.
"In these hours," he said, "we are grappling with the
difficult management of migratory flows.
"We can speak about solutions and concerns but I want to
recall that it is a whole country that is mobilising to manage
this emergency, to govern the flows, to combat traffickers". He
said "it isn't to blow on the embers but to ask Europe, and some
European countries, to stop turning away".
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani told ANSA on the
phone that "a cry of alarm has come from Italy (on migrants), an
SOS, not a request for money: we can't leave it on its own".
He said "I have spoken with (European Commission President
Jean-Claude) Juncker, a positive talk in which he reiterated
that the EU cannot turn its back on Italy."
Tajani added: "After the closure of the Balkan Route, it is
indispensable to also close the central Mediterranean one, we
can't have any more delays in solving the problem".
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that "people saved at sea
should be moved to the nearest landing port in which their
necessities and vulnerabilities can find a swift response".
Commenting on the idea of closing Italian ports to foreign
migrant rescue ships, MSF recalled that it has been calling for
more support from the EU for some time for rescue ops, in which
"all the States should take part".
The NGO said "you have to distinguish between lifesaving
rescue operations at sea and subsequent reception activities: on
the former, our main concern remains to provide an adequate
humanitarian response to those who need to be saved".
As for the possibility of denying landing in Italian ports to
ships saving migrants off Libya flying a different flag from the
Italian one, MSF said:
"We still don't have detailed information on this proposal
from the Italian government to the European Commission.
"We learned of it via the media.
"MSF has been asking the European Union for three years for
stronger support for search and rescue (SAR) operations and the
creation of an SAR system which States can participate in".
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