Italy’s ministers feud as EU states get ready to take in stranded migrants
EU countries have agreed to take in some of the 147 migrants stranded on a rescue ship near the Italian island of Lampedusa, Rome said on Thursday, amid a war of words between Italy’s interior minister and the country’s prime minister over immigration.
“France, Germany, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg have told me that they are ready to welcome the migrants,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in an open letter to Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has sought to ban the Open Arms rescue vessel from entering Italian waters.
“Again my European counterparts are offering us a helping hand,” Mr Conte wrote, while slamming Mr Salvini for “dishonest collaboration”.
He criticised what he called Mr Salvini’s “obsessive focus” on an immigration policy reduced to the phrase “closed ports”.
Mr Salvini has taken a hard line against migrants rescued at sea being brought to Italy, which he says bears an unfair burden in the crisis.
Responding to Mr Conte’s announcement, Mr Salvini wrote on Facebook: “It is clear that without [my] resolve, the European Union would never have lifted a finger, leaving Italy and the Italians on their own like previous governments did for years.
“My obsession is to fight every kind of crime, including clandestine immigration. I am a minister to defend the borders, the security, the honour, the dignity of my country.”
Mr Salvini, head of the antiimmigration League party, broke with his Five Star Movement coalition partner last week, hoping for a no-confidence vote that would topple the 14-month-old government. But his gamble failed, and his abandoned partner found an unexpected ally in the opposition Democratic Party (PD).
Five Star and the PD on Tuesday voted against Mr Salvini despite his last-minute offer to back a plan to slash the number of Italian legislators.
The fate of the migrants on board the Open Arms vessel, operated by Spanish charity Proactiva, hung in the balance with the ship at the centre of the political crisis in Rome.
This month Mr Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister, signed a decree banning the Open Arms from Italian waters, saying it was needed to protect public order.
But Proactiva appealed to an administrative court, which suspended the decree.
Mr Salvini then signed a new one blocking the ship, but in a demonstration of his diminished power, Italy’s defence minister blocked it.
Elisabetta Trenta, the Five Star party member with the authority to sign off on Mr Salvini’s controversial decree, announced that she had decided not to do so.
“I took this decision for solid legal reasons, listening to my conscience,” Ms Trenta said. “Politics must never lose sight of humanity.”
Mr Salvini retorted, saying: “It is thanks to the supposed concept of ‘humanity’ that through years of Democratic government Italy has become Europe’s refugee camp.
“Humanity would be investing seriously in Africa, certainly not opening Italian ports.”