A clash between Interior Minister
Matteo Salvini and centre-left and left-leaning mayors on the
minister's recent security and migrant decree continued on
Thursday, with the minister urging the officials to quit.
As Salvini said the mayors would have to change their
allegedly lenient ways regarding migrants, a new front was
opened over a migrant ship that has been seeking landfall for
over a week.
Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris said Thursday he was ready to
open his port to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that has been roaming
the Mediterranean for days with 32 migrants on board.
"I hope this boat comes to the port of Naples because unlike
what the government says we will put into the field a rescue
action and we will let it into the port," he said.
He said "I will be the first to lead the rescue actions".
Italian ports are closed to NGO migrant rescue ships, Salvini
reiterated after de Magistris's promise.
"Italian ports are closed, we have already accepted too many
fake refugees, we have enriched too many migrant smugglers!," he
said.
"Let the leftwing mayors think of their citizens in
difficulty, not about clandestine migrants".
The party is over for some leftwing mayors who allegedly
benefited from migrant reception business, Salvini went on to
say.
"With the (Democratic Party) it was chaos and clandestine
migrants, with the League it is order and respect," said the
leader of the anti-migrant League party.
"Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of
immigration, but for them too the party is over!".
Salvini was commenting on a rebellion against his
migrant-security decree by mayors including Palermo's Leoluca
Orlando who say it unfairly strips some migrants of access to
healthcare and other local services and allegedly ejects
thousands of migrants from the system creating potential
criminals.
Orlando, for his part, said his perceived rebellion against
Salvini's allegedly "inhuman" migrant clampdown had been
"a dutiful institutional act".
"Don't call me a rebel. My action is a dutiful institutional
act, against a decree that authoritative men of the Church have
described as inhuman", he said in press interviews.
Orlando has been joined by other left-leaning mayors
including de Magistris in Naples, Dario Nardella in Florence,
and Federico Pizzarotti in Parma in saying they will not apply
some allegedly unconstitutional norms in the decree.
Orlando went on to say that he would turn to a judge to raise
the issue of whether the decree complies with the Italian
Constitution.
He said he hoped raising the issue at a judicial level would
lead to the Constitutional Court examining the decree.
The other deputy premier, Salvini's ruling partner Luigi Di
Maio of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, accused the
mayors of indulging in "electoral spots".
"It's just electioneering on the part of mayors who have to
feel a bit leftwing by making a bit of noise," said Di Maio, who
is also labour and industry minister.
Salvini said the mayors who did not agree with him "should
resign".
He said "Orlando and de Magistris quit".
He also said the mayors should "respect" the signature of
President Sergio Mattarella that is on the decree.
The European Commission has been in touch with some member
States to find landing spots for the 32 migrants on board NGO
rescue ship Sea watch, an EC spokesman said Thursday, adding
that the contacts also concerned another ship, Sea Eye.
The spokesman said Migration Commissioner Dimitris
Avramopoulos "directly contacted member States in the last few
days".
He said the commissioner "is asking member States to help
this joint effort to disembark those on board safely and as soon
as possible".
Bari mayor Antonio Decaro, head of the Italian municipalities
association ANCI, on Thursday noted that Salvini in the past
called for the kind of civil disobedience, on civil unions, that
he is now condemning over his migrant security decree.
Decaro noted that "a short while ago, before becoming
minister, he himself blatantly urged mayors to disobey a State
law, that on civil unions," said Decaro.
"Now he is threatening mayors" for doing the same thing, said
the ANCI chief.
Decaro said the new rules on migrants and security placed
mayors in a position of "objective difficulty" and said he did
not want to feed the clash with Salvini.
"The mayors are asking for dialogue, they're not partying,"
he said in reference to Salvini's assertion that "the party is
over" for mayors and their migrant activities.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe 'Beppe' Sala said "Salvini should listen
to us and change the decree".
The Italian partisans association ANPI said it was "with the
mayors who are resisting" and said the officials were trying to
defend basic rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Eighty minors who are "well integrated" into life in Palermo
will soon turn 18 and become illegal proving that Salvini's
security and migrant decree is "inhuman and crime-creating",
Orlando told ANSA Thursday.
"In Palermo, in 4-5 months, 80 minors, who are studying,
working and are guests of the community where they live well
integrated lives will turn 18 and will therefore be illegal," he
said.
"This is confirmation that this security decree is inhuman
and crime-creating", he said.
The number of unaccompanied minors currently in the reception
centre at Palermo is around 250, the city councillor for
solidarity-based citizenship, Giuseppe Mattina, added.
The government should call the mayors for talks instead of
issuing threats against them, centre-left opposition Democratic
Party (PD) leadership contender Maurizio Martina said Thursday.
"The mayors who are expressing their critical position
towards the Salvini decree should be listened to, not insulted,"
said Martina, until recently a PD caretaker leader.
"They should be called to discuss (the decree), not
threatened.
"Because they are the first to find themselves every day with
the concrete issue of citizenship and security, of rules in
rights and duties".
The lack of respect for the law on the part of the mayors who
have refused to implement parts of the government's security and
migrant decree is "unacceptable", sources at the premier's
office said Thursday.
"The positions of local administrators who have publicly
declared they do not intend to apply a State law are
unacceptable," the sources said.
"Our juridical system does not give mayors the power to say
whether laws are constitutional or not: not applying a law that
you don't like is the same as breaking it, with all the
consequent responsibilities".
But the sources said they would "welcome" a meeting of the
mayors' association ANCI with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini
and Premier Giuseppe Conte to iron out difficulties in applying
the decree.
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