Italy calls for more help with migrants

ITALY’S interior minister called on other European countries yesterday to open their ports to rescue ships ahead of talks with France and Germany on tackling the migrant emergency.

Marco Minniti, who was to meet his counterparts in Paris later yesterday to prepare for EU talks in Tallinn this week, said Italy was under huge pressure.

With arrivals in Italy up nearly 19% compared to the same period last year, Rome has threatened to close its ports to privately funded aid boats or insist funding be cut to EU countries which fail to help with the crisis.

“There are NGO ships, Sophia and Frontex boats, Italian coast guard vessels saving migrants in the Mediterranean,” Minniti said, referring to the aid boats as well as vessels deployed under EU border security missions.

“They are sailing under the flags of various European countries. If the only ports where refugees are taken to are Italian, something is not working. This is the heart of the question,” he said.

More than 83 000 people rescued while attempting the perilous crossing from Libya have been brought to Italy so far this year, according to the UN, while more than 2 160 had died trying, the International Organisation for Migration said.

Italy’s Red Cross has warned the situation in the country’s overcrowded reception centres is becoming critical.

Minniti was set to meet counterparts Gerard Collomb, of France, Thomas de Maiziere, of Germany and European Union Commissioner for Refugees Dimitris Avramopoulos last night in the French capital.

Even before the meeting, his plans were being met with scorn on Italy’s political right.

“The attempt to involve Europe, which clearly doesn’t give a damn, is pathetic,” Paolo Romani, the head of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party in the Senate, said, calling for the ports to be barred.

Minniti said Rome would be pushing for a way to shift the asylum application process from Italy to Libya, and safely bring to Europe those who won the right to protection on humanitarian grounds.

Unsourced Italian media reports said Rome was likely to call for a European code of conduct to be drawn up for the privately run aid boats.

And Italy insisted the EU refugee relocation programme – largely limited to people from Eritrea and Syria – should be expanded to include other nationalities, like Nigerians, La Repubblica said.