Relocations of asylum seekers a security blanket - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 13 - The relocation of asylum seekers from countries of first arrival to third countries under a European solidarity mechanism is secondary to the real issue of preventing people from arriving in the first place, Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday.
    "The question of relocations is secondary, very few people have been relocated in recent months, it is a Linus blanket," Meloni said in a recorded interview for the nightly current affairs programme Five Minutes on Rai1.
    "The question is not how we offload the problem, it is to stop arrivals to Italy," she added, referring to the decision by Germany to suspend relocation procedures for asylum seekers arriving in Italy under a 2022 European solidarity mechanism until Rome agrees to resume taking back asylum seekers who arrived in Italy and then moved on to Germany under the rules governing asylum in Europe.
    "I still don't see concrete solutions," said Meloni.
    Dublin requires asylum applications to be processed in the country of first entry, putting national asylum systems in countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain which bear the brunt of sea arrivals under huge strain. (ANSA).