Italy mulls temporary visas for migrants

Italy is considering issuing temporary visas that would allow migrants to travel around the European Union, its deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday, a move intended to pressure its EU neighbors to do more to help ease the migration crisis.

With the huge number of people crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa increasing, Italy complains that its European partners are not sharing the load.

Asked whether migrants could be given the temporary permits, Deputy Foreign Minister Mario Giro told left- wing newspaper Il Manifesto the government was looking at all possibilities.

“We are in a tug of war,” Giro said in the interview which was posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website.

He said Italy wanted to avoid unilateral gestures, but is against the strict application of EU law which keeps migrants in their first country of arrival.

“We don’t accept being turned into a European hotspot, or feeling guilty because we rescue people, so deciding what to do with the migrants who arrive is everyone’s responsibility,” Giro said.

More than 93,000 mainly sub- Saharan African and Bangladeshi migrants have arrived by boat in southern Italy so far in 2017, a 17 percent increase in the same period last year, according to the interior ministry.

It was too early to say when or how many such permits could be issued, Giro said, adding that the Italian authorities who receive asylum requests already have the power to grant them.